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This Wednesday, 52 years to the day after Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Senate is expected to vote on a bill that pro-life Republican leaders have worked to pass for years: the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. When Democrats held majorities, they continually voted against it and/or tried to block it from coming to the floor.

Why would a bill protecting newborns stir up controversy? Today we answer common questions and debunk talking points from extremist pro-abortion politicians.

Do abortion survivors really exist?

Last year we shared the story of our good friend Melissa Ohden, who survived a saline-infusion abortion forced on her birthmother. The organization she founded, The Abortion Survivors Network, has connected with more than 650 people who also survived abortions. Abortion survivors also include the more than 5,000 lives saved through Abortion Pill Reversal.

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How often do babies survive abortions?

Statistics on infants born alive are not easy to come by. Willard “Ward” Cates, late epidemiologist and abortion data chief for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, said in a stunning Philadelphia Inquirer investigative piece in the 1980s subtitled “The Dreaded Complication,” for the abortionists, “It’s like turning yourself in to the IRS for an audit.” Only eight states out of 50 have historically reported such data (and thanks to Gov. Tim Walz Minnesota is no longer one of them). In those states alone, we can still see that 284 live births occurred between 1997 and 2024.

More science:

• The CDC estimates that between 2003 and 2014, at least 143 babies died after being born alive during abortions – quite possibly an undercount, they acknowledge.
• Research published in 2024 in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology analyzed 13,777 late-term abortions between 15-29 weeks performed in Canada and found that over 11% resulted in live births (or approximately 1,500 babies). For almost half of the abortions, there was no risk to either the unborn baby’s or mother’s health.
• A study published in Obstetrics & Gynecology in 2018 reviewed 241 late-term abortions on unborn babies with abnormalities between 20-24 weeks gestational age and reported that unless the unborn baby was killed first, more than half the babies were born alive.
• A paper published in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology in 2007 examined 3,189 abortions for prenatal conditions performed in the United Kingdom between 1995 and 2004, finding that 3% of the abortions resulted in babies who were born alive and then passed away.
• A 2005 case report in the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (U.K.) documented the medical history of a little boy who survived an abortion.
• Another paper published in BJOG in 2005 reviewed 31 cases in a six-year period in which babies died after being born alive during abortions.
• In 2020, a study published in Swiss Medical Weekly analyzed 195 late-term abortions for prenatal conditions performed in Switzerland and found that 39% resulted in live births.

Learn more and see full citations in Charlotte Lozier Institute’s Fact Sheet.

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What is “comfort care”? The un-comforting reality

Democrats and their media allies object that babies born alive receive “planned comfort care.” But what does that actually mean? Melissa Ohden and Marjorie Dannenfelser explain in a joint op-ed at RealClearPolicy:

…[O]pponents of born-alive protections defend infanticide with the benign-sounding term “comfort care.” In the abortion context, it is a euphemism for letting babies die without medical care, even if they might live. At one Illinois hospital, a whistleblower revealed, babies born alive often survived for several hours. If no one was willing to hold them, they were taken to the “Comfort Room” which was basically a public relations effort – previously they were left in the soiled utility room or even put in the trash. At the hospital where Melissa was born, they might be drowned in a bucket of formaldehyde. At abortion centers across America, where there is often less oversight, these children are at even greater risk from abortionists who believe they won’t face consequences.

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Isn’t it already illegal to harm a baby?

In 2002, long before the name Ralph Northam became associated with infanticide, President George W. Bush signed a law with a similar name: the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, which affirms that babies who survive abortions are people with rights in the eyes of federal law. It was a step in the right direction. However, this law itself contains no enforcement mechanisms. Without real penalties for the abortion industry, babies like the victims of D.C. late-term abortionist Cesare Santangelo continue to be killed or left to die. Federal law and 31 states do not adequately protect the lives of infants born alive after botched abortions (state and federal laws are not necessarily redundant, either).

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Does this bill force doctors to provide inappropriate treatment?

The short answer is no, it does not.

When this bill came up for a House vote in 2018, New York Democrat Jerrold Nadler claimed that it “puts children’s lives and health at risk. It requires doctors to immediately ensure transportation and admission of the infant to a hospital in all cases, with no regard as to whether doing so is in the best interest of the child’s health and well-being.” That would certainly be very concerning, if it were true.

Dr. Robin Pierucci, medical director of a 50-bed neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), testified previously before the Senate:

While it is always my duty to care for every baby, this is not equivalent to aggressively resuscitating every baby. Exactly like patients seen by doctors in almost every other medical discipline, there are patients that are beyond our ability to heal…Over the years, there have been a handful of times when it became clear that despite doing everything we knew to do for the baby, we were not going to be successful…It is at those times that I have had the privilege of taking those impossibly tiny hands into my own and simply holding the little one for the duration of his or her life…We too should never allow a baby, especially a baby, to die anywhere but in the warmth of our arms, nestled securely against our hearts.

The bill simply ensures that a baby born alive during an abortion attempt receives the same medical care as any other baby born prematurely at the same age – no more, no less. The least we can do for them is enact the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act into law.