Family Research Council’s Center for Human Dignity released today an updated issue brief, Born-Alive Abortion Survivors: Just the Facts, and an updated Born-Alive Protections Map.
There is currently no federal requirement to provide medical care to an infant born alive following an abortion. The Born-Alive Survivors Protection Act, requiring abortionists and any healthcare practitioners present to “exercise the same degree of professional skill, care, and diligence to preserve the life and health of the child as a reasonably diligent and conscientious health care practitioner would render to any other child born alive at the same gestational age” is an attempt to remedy this.
As the brief notes, in 2019, the U.S. Senate held a cloture vote on the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. The bill failed with forty-four Democrats opposing the life-saving legislation, including now Vice President Kamala Harris, who was a senator representing California at the time. In 2020, the bill failed again, with Harris voting against it a second time.
There is also no federal requirement to report how many children, and under what circumstances, are born alive after an attempted abortion. According to FRC’s research, only eight states currently require the reporting of infants born alive following an abortion.
Notably, under Governors Tim Walz and Gretchen Witmer, Minnesota and Michigan removed reporting requirements for these babies. In fact, under Governor Tim Walz, Minnesota repealed the requirement for a physician to attempt to “preserve the life and health of the born alive infant” following an abortion.
Importantly, even with only 10 states having ever required reporting, there are 277 known cases of infants born alive following an abortion.
Family Research Council’s Born-Alive Protections Map lists every state’s laws, or lack of laws, protecting babies born alive following an abortion.
As the map shows, 35 states have at least some protections for babies born live following an abortion; however, three states, New York, Illinois, and Minnesota–under current Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz–have actively removed protections for babies born alive following an abortion, and an additional 12 states have never had protections for these babies.
Family Research Council’s Mary Szoch commented, “Democrats in this country have lost any sense of the value of life. Their attack on life begins at fertilization, but it continues throughout the entirety of pregnancy and does not even stop after the baby is born. Vice President Kamala Harris and Governor Tim Walz have actively worked to ensure that babies born alive following abortions do not receive the help that they desperately need. Let us pray for the day when every human being is protected from the moment he or she comes into existence.”
Chantel Hoyt, Family Research Council’s Legislative Assistant, commented: “FRC’s map and issue brief disproves the abortion industry’s claims about abortion survivors. Abortion survivors are a very uncomfortable and inconvenient reality for the pro-abortion Left, so it’s no wonder that they actively try to prevent the gathering of state data on abortion survivors. This conversation humanizes victims and would-be victims of abortion, which they cannot tolerate. Hopefully, these resources help people to learn about the reality of abortion survivors and the horrors of abortion (at any stage) and embolden them to hold their state and federal elected officials accountable for the lack of data gathering and legal protections for these babies.”
To access the report, please visit: https://www.frc.org/bornalive
To access the map, please visit: https://www.frc.org/prolifemaps
