The Born Alive Act

Whatever one's views on a right to abortion may be, surely the overwhelming majority of Americans are opposed to killing babies after they're born. Yet, a bill voted on by the Senate Monday night which would've made it illegal to allow newborns to die despite having survived attempts to abort them could only garner three Democrat votes and fell short of the 60 votes needed to pass.

It's stunning that in the entire Democratic Senate caucus of 47 members only three were willing to say that it should be illegal to allow children born alive, wanted or unwanted, to die from inanition.

The argument used to be that as long as the child was inside the mother's body she should have the right to determine whether it lives or dies, but that once the child is outside the body, its right to live supersedes her wishes.

Evidently, we have passed that point on the slippery slope, we've passed the point where the New York state delegation lights the city in pink and stands and cheers when a bill passes that allows the mother to decide to kill the baby as it's being born. We're now at the point where Democrat politicians cannot even say they oppose killing the baby even after it has left the mother's womb.

The Washington Free Beacon gives us the discouraging details:

Democrats blocked the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act in a Monday roll call vote, which would have made it mandatory for doctors to provide medical care to babies who are born alive during an abortion. The bill needed 60 votes to pass, but fell on a 53-44 vote.

The legislation sponsored by Sen. Ben Sasse (R., Neb.) had nothing to do with Roe v. Wade and the ability to obtain an abortion, but only babies outside of the womb....

The bill is overwhelmingly popular with voters, including a vast majority of those who identify as pro-choice; 70 percent of Democrats, 75 percent of independents, and 86 percent of Republicans support providing care to abortion survivors, according to the McLaughlin & Associates poll commissioned by the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List.

Sasse took to the Senate floor emphasizing that the bill would not apply to Roe v. Wade just prior to the vote. He said Democratic rhetoric about the Born-Alive act had "nothing to do what's in this bill."

"As you get ready to cast this vote, picture a baby that's already been born, that is outside the womb, gasping for air. That's the only thing that today's vote is actually about," he said. "We're talking about babies who've already been born, nothing in this bill touches abortion access."

Nevertheless, some senators actually tried to argue that a mother should have the right to decide whether her child, though outside of her body, lives or dies:

Democrat Mazie Hirono (D., Hawaii) called the bill a "solution in search of a problem" and a "threat to women's reproductive health." She said physicians and mothers should be left to decide whether a live infant should receive care or be allowed to die on the table, rather than the law.

"Conservative politicians should not be telling doctors how they should care for their patients. Instead women, in consultation with their families and doctors, are in the best position to determine their best course of care," she said.

Senator Hirono's assertions are extraordinary. It's regrettable that no one asked her to declare what age a child must attain before its mother no longer has the right to decide whether it lives or dies.

If a newborn child hasn't the right to life, at what age does it acquire it? What are the criteria Senator Hirono believes we should base the child's right to life upon? Being successfully potty trained? Demonstrating rudimentary language skills? Graduating from high school?

Other questions arise:

If an unwanted child can be left to die should an abortion fail to kill it, what logical grounds remain for not removing protections from any baby that the mother decides she doesn't want, even if she never attempted to abort it?

How many of the senators who voted against protecting baby human beings would vigorously support a law preventing the harvesting of baby seals or whales? How many of them would support conferring rights on animals and rivers, even as they deny the most basic right to the most vulnerable human beings?

The Trump administration endorsed the bill ahead of the vote, saying that it was necessary to "prevent infanticide" and "ensure that the life of one baby is not treated as being more or less valuable than another."

"The bill draws a sorely needed bright line of protection around abortion survivors by requiring that they be given the same level of care as any other premature infant," the administration said. "A baby that survives an abortion, and is born alive into this world should be treated just like any other baby."

It should be, certainly. A society that has nevertheless lost the ability to value a child's life, which regards a baby's life as expendable, is a society in the process of moral disintegration and slow-motion collapse.

Every Republican in the chamber voted to approve the act, along with Democrats Bob Casey (PA), Doug Jones (AL), and Joe Manchin (WV).

The rest of them - following in the footsteps of their political ancestors who from the inception of the Democratic party in 1792 until the 1970s refused to consider blacks to be deserving of basic rights - refused Monday to consider human babies to be deserving of human rights.

What a sad indictment of their moral impoverishment.