Senate to Vote on Pro-Life Born-Alive Survivors Protection Act Before March for Life
As pro-life Christians make a pilgrimage to the nation’s capital later this month for the third annual March for Life after the repeal of Roe v. Wade, they may have something new to celebrate.
The U.S. Senate plans to vote on a bill to assure unborn babies who are born during botched abortions receive potentially lifesaving medical care.
“As thousands of pro-life Americans come to Washington for the 52nd Annual March for Life, we’ll take up the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act,” announced Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) during a floor speech on Wednesday. “This vote will ask Democrats to answer whether a living baby born after an attempted abortion should be provided with medical care or be left to die. It shouldn’t be a hard question.”
Thune previously introduced the humane care act with Senator James Lankford (R-Okla.), the newly-elected Republican Conference vice chair, who will also reintroduce the measure in the 119th Congress. The bill passed the House in January 2023 by a near-party-line vote of 220-210. Only one Democrat, Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas, voted in favor.
On Wednesday, Thune described the bill as a “commonsense measure.”
Pro-life leaders praised the Senate leaders’ pro-active stance. “This act is desperately needed to ensure that every born child in America is treated with dignity and respect. It is legislation that every American should be appalled we do not already have,” Mary Szoch, director of the Center for Human Dignity at Family Research Council, told The Washington Stand.
“Currently, 35 states have at least some protections for babies born alive after an abortion. Unfortunately, only 19 states require that the newborn be immediately transferred to a hospital, that a health care practitioner renders the same care to a child born alive after an abortion to any other child born alive at the same gestational age, and that any failure to comply be reported,” Szoch continued. “All three of these are requirements in the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act.”
Szoch documented that at least 277 babies have been born alive during an abortion in the United States — but the actual number is likely far higher than those reported.
“Perhaps, they were given the medical treatment every child deserves, but considering the only ‘doctor’ present is the abortionist who was just moments before trying to kill the newborn, it is far more likely these babies are simply left to die or actively killed,” Szoch told TWS. “No one will ever know what happened to them.”
Instead of protecting newborns, Democrat-led states have eroded reporting requirements. “It is not likely that the number of babies surviving abortions is decreasing; however, what is decreasing is the willingness to accurately document these lives. As FRC’s Born-Alive Abortion Survivors report details, until recently, both Michigan and Minnesota collected data on the number of babies born alive following an abortion. Now, neither state does.”
Thune plans to rectify that, along with taking votes on high-priority Republican legislation. Thune said Wednesday he will plan to work on border security, stanching the International Criminal Court’s criticism of Israel, and confirming the president-elect’s Cabinet nominees “swiftly so the Trump-Vance administration can hit the ground running.”
Thune currently stands in the midst of negotiations over the best strategy to implement President-elect Trump’s priorities of securing the border by building a wall and beginning mass deportations, enhancing national security, and restoring U.S. energy dominance, alongside the need to extend tax cuts from his signature 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The president hopes to include all these concerns in “one big, beautiful bill,” to assure Congress will not fail to enact his chief campaign promises, as they did under the leadership of former House Speaker Paul Ryan. Thune prefers to split tax relief and the president’s other objectives into two bills, as do Senators Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas).
Sources have told Fox News that the momentum appears to be shifting in favor of Trump’s strategy. The born-alive vote will further those efforts and bolster the president’s standing with the pro-life community.
“We pray for the day when the circumstances of a baby’s birth do not determine the level of protection he or she receives from the government, and for the day when every person — those born and those unborn — is treated as an irreplaceable gift from God,” Szoch concluded.
Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.