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Despite Dem Roadblocks, Republicans Continue Fighting for Babies Who Survive Failed Abortions

January 23, 2025

On Wednesday, Senate Democrats unanimously blocked a bill designed to protect babies that survive abortions.

The Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act is meant to penalize health care practitioners who fail to provide medical care for babies who survive failed abortion attempts. In other words, doctors would be required to treat babies born alive after unsuccessful abortions with the same care as any other newborn. The bill needed 60 votes to pass, but it failed with a final tally of 52-47. This bill, however, was not only barred by Democrats, but it has also been heavily criticized by them since Wednesday’s vote.

Senator Tina Smith (D-Minn.) described the legislation as “the first anti-choice bill of the Trump administration” Democrats “fought off.” Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.) called it “extreme anti-abortion legislation.” Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said the bill designed to require medical care for babies that escaped dying in an abortion is “Republicans’ latest attack on women’s reproductive freedoms.” She also claimed it is “offensive.”

Senator John Fetterman (D-Pa.) came out with this statement: “I’ve always stood on the side of Roe and a woman’s right to make her own health care choices. It’s absurd to mandate criminalization because of those choices. Any bill that does so, including the Born-Alive Survivors Protection Act, is a NO from me.”

Meanwhile, as Senate Democrats blast the legislation, Senate Republicans have been equally as vocal on their disappointment concerning Wednesday’s outcome. Senator James Lankford (R-Okla.), who sponsored the bill, posted on X, “I am disappointed that every Senate Democrat voted against my Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, making something that should be common sense, completely partisan for the first time. This bill is straightforward and would save lives. I believe every life is valuable and that no one is disposable.”

Other statements from Senate Republicans include the following:

  • Bill Cassidy (La.): “The Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act is straightforward. It says a child born after surviving an abortion should receive life-saving medical care. It’s not an abstract concept — it’s a living, breathing child. This bill should be passed.”
  • Lindsey Graham (S.C.): “Most Americans find it inexcusable that the Senate cannot pass a law protecting a child who survives an abortion from further harm. If this is not common sense and compassion, what would be? I am so bitterly disappointed that Senate Democrats blocked this legislation. Surviving late-term abortions does occur. The law should be clear as to what happens next. Save the baby.”
  • Katie Britt (Ala.): “Senate Democrats just voted to block the Born-Alive Act. This isn’t complicated: babies who survive a failed abortion deserve medical care. It’s truly unbelievable that protecting these precious lives is a partisan issue. I’ll never stop fighting for the voiceless.”
  • Mike Lee (Utah): “When people tell you who they are, believe them. Yesterday, Senate Democrats blocked the Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which bans abortionists from letting babies die from neglect if they survive an abortion. Democrats just told all of humanity who they are.”

Despite the concerted effort for Democrats to put an end to this act, Senate Republicans seem determined to stay in the fight. But they aren’t alone, as several other pro-lifers have raised their voices in support for the bill. In fact, Family Research Council’s Mary Szoch spoke at a press conference Thursday evening hosted by Rep. Mary Miller (R-Ill.) and the House’s Pro-Family Caucus.

In a passionate speech, Szoch spoke of the “efforts to end infanticide” that we’re seeing on the Hill. “The Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act is desperately needed,” she remarked. It’s needed “to prevent the tragedy of infanticide from continuing to occur in America — because it is happening — and it is happening right here in our nation’s Capitol.”


Szoch went on to explain how only 19 states have “requirements enshrined in law” that serve to protect babies that survive abortion attempts by requiring any “abortionist or health care practitioners present to provide treatment, ensure the newborn baby is transferred to a hospital, and report any failures to follow” such laws. “And just yesterday,” she added, “Democrats in the Senate once again stopped the federal government from enshrining such protections.” For all of “the countless unknown little saints whose voices are only heard in heaven,” Szoch urged that “we must continue to work to pass the Abortion Survivors Protection Act.”

Lankford shared his disgust at the Democrats’ refusal to support the legislation on “Washington Watch” Thursday. “It’s a very straightforward — what I consider a common sense, common ground — kind of bill. This is not about abortion at all,” he explained. “This is literally if an abortion is carried out. But the abortion, instead of destroying the child in the womb, the child is actually delivered. What do you do in that case where a child is actually delivered? They’re literally crying and breathing on the table in front of you. Now you have a fully delivered child in front of you. Do they get medical care or not? This seems like a no-brainer.”

Honestly, Lankford said, “I don’t run into anyone that says you [should kill them] after a child is fully delivered, but that is the current practice. The current practice now is they can’t take the life of that child at the table. That would be infanticide. So what they do is they basically back away and allow the child to die on their own, right in front of them. I think that’s horrific to just allow a child to be able to die of exposure,” the senator argued. “And so we’re trying to step in and say, ‘Hey, where are we as a culture?’ [It’s a] post-abortion conversation here. Just delivery conversation. Can’t we at least agree that when a child is fully delivered, they should get medical care?” he asked. “And painfully, Wednesday, Democrats said no. If it was intended to be an abortion, even after they’re fully delivered and alive on the table, their life should still be taken from them. I think that’s abhorrent, and I think that’s very extreme and well past where the American people are.”

Asked about the future of the effort, Lankford replied, “It is finished in the Senate for now. The House picked it up. They passed it. And what’s interesting,” he explained, “[is] the House and the Senate both had a majority vote for this. But … you have to have 60 [senators] to be able to move it. But we had 52 votes. [The] majority of the Senate agrees with this. But we don’t have enough to be able to move it. The House did have a majority when they voted on it today, and they’re able to pass it in the House, but we’re not able to make law on it until we get out of the Senate with 60.”

Quite frankly, the senator reiterated, “Every physician has basic Hippocratic oath to ‘do no harm’ and then to also do basic care. If you’ve got a living child in front of you, there’s a responsibility to be able to take care of a living child, not back away,” he underscored. “And this doesn’t happen often, but it does happen. And then the question is, when it does happen, what are we going to do? And currently, we’ve not even been able to agree on that.”

Sarah Holliday is a reporter at The Washington Stand.



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