Kentucky Committee Passes Bill to Stop Infanticide, Require Care for Babies Surviving Abortion

State   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Jan 23, 2020   |   5:09PM   |   Frankfort, KY

Kentucky is working on becoming a leader in the fight for babies targeted for death by abortion.

State lawmakers voted Thursday to advance a bill that would require abortionists to provide basic medical care to babies who survive abortions.

Kentucky Senate Bill 9, sponsored by state Sen. Whitney Westerfield, would require that “reasonable life-saving and life-sustaining” medical care be provided to infants who are born alive after failed abortions. Medical professionals who violate the measure could face criminal penalties and have their license revoked. The Senate Veterans, Military Affairs and Public Protection Committee approved the bill with no opposition and no one speaking against it.

Westerfield said the measure would prevent babies from being left to die if they survive an abortion.

“Who can dispute that that’s a human life?” Westerfield said. “It’s outside the womb. It’s alive. Who would advocate for it to be killed? … We want to make sure the law’s there to punish those that are trying to do it and get away with it.”

The bill would require that health-care workers give “medically appropriate and reasonable life-saving and life-sustaining medical care and treatment” to any infant born after a failed abortion.

Violating the bill would be a felony punishable by 1 to 5 years in prison. It would apply to doctors and other health workers found in violation of the care requirements.

When the legislature considered the bill last year, Planned Parenthood quickly lashed out against the bill, telling the local news that it is nothing more than “inflammatory political rhetoric.” The abortion chain’s spokesperson Tamarra Wieder even claimed “there is no such thing” as an abortion survivor – contradicting numerous personal testimonies as well as Centers for Disease Control data.

Previously, abortion survivor Claire Culwell testified before Kentucky lawmakers about another pro-life bill that would ban abortions after an unborn baby’s heartbeat is detectable. She and other abortion survivors like Melissa Ohden and Gianna Jessen are living proof that babies sometimes do survive abortions.

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Reports by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) also indicate that there are infants born alive after botched abortions in the U.S. According to Congressional testimony:

Data that the CDC collects also confirms babies are born alive after attempted abortions.  Between the years 2003 and 2014 there were somewhere between 376 and 588 infant deaths under the medical code P96.4 which keeps track of babies born alive after a “termination of pregnancy.”

The CDC concluded that of the 588 babies, 143 were “definitively” born alive after an attempted abortion and they lived from minutes to one or more days, with 48% of the babies living between one to four hours.  It also admitted that it’s possible the number is an underestimate (B).

Westerfield’s bill is similar to legislation that pro-abortion Democrats blocked in the U.S. House and Senate earlier this week. Demonstrating their loyalty to the billion-dollar abortion industry, Democrats blocked the Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act 80 times last year. The bill requires abortionists to provide the same basic medical care to an infant born alive after a failed abortion that a doctor would to any other infant born at that stage of pregnancy.

Also moving through the Kentucky legislature are bills to ban abortions after an unborn baby’s heartbeat is detectable and to ban abortions completely when the U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade. Another bill would protect unborn baby girls and unborn babies with Down syndrome from discriminatory abortions.