An unknown member of the U.S. Senate has blocked a resolution seeking hearings on abortion and abortion practitioner Kermit Gosnell, who is on trial for murder for killing babies in abortion-infanticides.
UPDATE: Senator Lee’s press secretary later identified the senator who opposed the Gosnell hearings resolution as Senator Rich Blumenthall of Connecticut.
Sen. Blumenthall objects to Senator Lee’s #Gosnell resolution
— Emily Bennion (@SenLeePressSec) May 8, 2013
Today, an objection was filed to Senator Mike Lee’s resolution calling for a review of public policies that led to the horrific and illegal abortion practices of Dr. Kermit Gosnell and others. Lee attempted to “hotline” the resolution on Monday evening, but an unknown senator objected to unanimous passage of the language. “It is difficult to imagine why anyone would object to a non-binding resolution calling on Congress to investigate these alleged disturbing, horrific, and illegal abortion practices committed by Kermit Gosnell and others,” said Senator Lee, who filed the resolution on Monday evening. 
Lee added: “With numerous reports of similar instances surfacing around the country, the need for greater regulatory oversight of these so-called clinics is so plainly obvious it strains the limits of disbelief to think all members of the Senate would not agree. The resolution is simply an affirmation that we as a country – a moral and compassionate society – have an interest in acting to save the lives of innocent women and children, and to prevent these kinds of heinous acts from happening to anyone again.” Ironically, the blocking of the measure may be a good thing for pro-life advocates in that it could require a Senate roll call vote on the resolution. The Susan B. Anthony List is one group calling for hearings on Gosnell. “The abortion lobby claims that the Gosnell clinic is an outlier, but the footage released this morning by Live Action reveals once more that the abortion industry treats women and children as mere pieces of meat,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, President of SBA List. “Leroy Carhart, the most visible and ‘celebrated’ of America’s late-term abortionists jokes about using pick axes and drill bits to pull apart the body of a child capable of surviving outside the womb. How is this different from the atrocities that occurred at Kermit Gosnell’s Women’s Medical Society in Philadelphia? Congress must address the multi-state breakdown of oversight in the abortion industry as well as the barbarism of abortions performed on children capable of feeling pain and surviving outside the womb.” She told LifeNews: “Congress must address its role in protecting the human rights of children late in pregnancy. The few, mere inches that separate a child in the womb from a child outside the womb should never determine whether its intentional ‘demise’ is permitted by law. Americans overwhelmingly oppose late-term abortions and the law should follow their instinctive resistance to this dehumanizing and degrading practice.” Lee previously released a letter along with 10 of his GOP colleagues introducing a resolution calling for the Senate to hold hearings on abortion facility regulations. “Congress and States should gather information about and correct abusive, unsanitary, and illegal abortion practices and the interstate referral of women and girls to facilities engaged in dangerous or illegal second- and third-trimester procedures,” the resolution states. “The lack of oversight at abortion facilities puts women’s lives at risk and leads to the kind of unconscionable practices we have seen recently,” Lee said in a statement on the resolution. “The Senate should formally recognize that this is a problem in our country and we have a responsibility to investigate the causes, review the effects of certain public policies, and determine what we can do to prevent any woman from being subjected to these reprehensible practices again.” “Congress has the responsibility to investigate and conduct hearings on abortions performed near, at, or after viability in the United States, public policies regarding such, and evaluate the extent to which such abortions involve violations of the natural right to life of infants who are born alive or are capable of being born alive, and therefore are entitled to equal protection under the law,” the resolution says. “The facts of the Gosnell case are disturbing and heartbreaking,” Lee said. “It should be a wake-up call to all Americans. The senators who joined Lee include Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri, Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, Sen. James Vitter of Louisiana, Sen. Mike Johanns of Nebraska, and Sen. John Boozman of Arkansas. CLICK LIKE IF YOU’RE PRO-LIFE!
No Democrats signed on to the resolution.
The resolution has the support of pro-life blogger Jill Stanek, who said she sees no reason why abortion backers would oppose it.
“What abortion supporter interested in “safe” abortions could possibly oppose investigating and outing unsafe abortion clinics nationwide? We shall soon see,” she said.
Stanek continued: “The resolution also addresses an issue that is long overdue, to “evaluate the extent to which such abortions involved violations of the natural right to life of infants who are born alive or are capable of being born alive.” The Born Alive Infants Protection Act was passed in 2002, but there has never been any follow-up to determine whether the law was being violated. Since then, incidents have been reported of abortion survivors who were left to die, such as the baby who was born alive in a toilet in an Orlando, Florida, abortion clinic in 2005, and who clinic workers abandoned to die despite pleas from his mother; or the baby who was zipped still alive in a biohazard bag and thrown on the roof of a Hialeah, Florida, abortion clinic in 2006.”
Stanek is also happy the resolution addresses the issue of fetal pain, interstate trafficking for abortions, the woeful lack of abortion reporting among the states, unenforced abortion clinic regulations, and mentions as an example of unsafe abortion clinics the “meat market” that is Planned Parenthood of Delaware.
