Rapp, Dannenfelser: Please urge your legislators to support the “Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act”
Our government’s most sacred duty is to safeguard the right to life for all Americans, including the most vulnerable. That’s why pro-life leaders in Congress are demanding a vote on the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act to ensure that every newborn receives equal care, no matter the circumstances of their birth.
The effort is bitterly partisan – for now. It would take only five House Democrats joining the Republicans’ petition to force a vote on this bill. Five Democrats – not to guarantee passage, just to simply have a vote. Shamefully, not a single Democrat in Pennsylvania’s House delegation has signed on – not even Reps. Susan Wild, Matt Cartwright or Conor Lamb. Although they consistently vote pro-abortion, they are all up for re-election in competitive districts next year, in a deeply pro-life state. And this legislation is decidedly popular.
Many Americans are horrified when they learn that Roe v. Wade permits abortion on demand up to birth. Indeed, the U.S. is one of only seven nations that permit late-term abortions for any reason more than halfway through pregnancy, even up to birth – a shameful club that includes North Korea and China. Even more shocking, babies sometimes survive and are callously left to die.
In 2002, President George W. Bush signed a law clarifying that babies who survive abortion attempts are considered persons under the law, with legal rights. This was a good first step, but it didn’t create any specific requirements, or hold personnel accountable if they deny babies life-saving care.
A decade later, Pennsylvania and the nation were rocked by the trial of abortionist Kermit Gosnell. Witnesses testified that Gosnell routinely cut the necks of babies born alive, and at least two women died after undergoing abortions at his filthy “house of horrors.” After decades of willful blindness by state government, media, and an abortion industry incapable of self-regulating, Gosnell’s belated conviction was made possible in part by state law that bans most late-term abortions.
