Americans across the country may be wondering why it’s so easy for abortion activists to oppose legislation that would protect newborn babies from infanticide.
That’s because they don’t believe that newborn infants are actually people.
This week, a North Carolina legislative committee approved a bill to protect newborns who survive abortions from infanticide. The vote follows another by the Texas Senate on legislation that also requires appropriate medical care for babies who survive abortions.
Senate Bill 359 requires doctors to provide the same care to an infant that survives an abortion as they give any other newborn. It includes a duty for health care practitioners to report any violations, and it makes those violations a class D felony, the same category as arson, armed robbery and voluntary manslaughter.
But one abortion advocate in the state opposes the bill.
Calla Hales is an abortion activist who is on the board of directors of the North Carolina affiliate of NARAL. She is also the director of Preferred Women’s Health Clinics, a chain of abortion clinics in North Carolina and Georgia. Hales doesn’t believe that newborn babies immediately after birth are legal persons. She claims that’s the case because an infant younger than 30 days old cannot be added to a will in the state. Young people can’t purchase alcohol or vote either but that doesn’t take away from their status as persons under law.
Hales made the comments on a tweet that she took offline immediately after she came under criticism on Twitter. She eventually protected her account to make the tweet not visible to the public but Alexandra DeSanctis of National Review captured a screenshot of it before it went private.
Well she has now protected her account after claiming newborn infants can’t be legal persons. So that’s that, I guess. But screenshots are forever, of course. pic.twitter.com/7dhXh8dKjn
— Alexandra DeSanctis (@xan_desanctis) April 12, 2019
Hales’ comments, while horrific, are not surprising given that abortion activist are consistently opposing legislation to protect babies who survive abortions. And the comment is not surprising from Hales given that killing babies in abortions is a family business.
The North Carolina and Texas bills are similar to federal legislation that pro-abortion Democrats are blocking in the U.S. House and Senate. The Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act requires abortionists to provide the same level of medical care to an infant who survives an abortion as a doctor would to any other baby at the same stage of life.
Currently, 19 states do not have laws requiring medical care for babies born alive after botched abortions, according to research by Americans United for Life. However, Kentucky lawmakers are considering legislation similar to the Texas bill.
Some states never have passed laws to protect abortion survivors, while at least one other, New York, recently repealed its law requiring medical care for infants who survive abortions.
