Editor’s Note: The following transcript is from the Senate Session Floor Proceedings today, February 25, at 2:00 pm, of Majority Leader, Senator Mitch McConnell urging his fellow colleagues in consideration of the motion to proceed to vote on the advancement of S.311, the Born-Alive Abortion Survivor’s Protection Bill.
Senator Mitch McConnell said:
But first, in a few hours the Senate will vote on advancing a straight-forward piece of legislation to protect newborn babies.
This legislation is simple. It would simply require that medical professionals give the standard care and treatment to newborn babies who have survived an attempted abortion as any other newborn baby would receive in any other circumstances.
It isnt about new restrictions on abortion. It isn’t about changing options available to women. It’s just about recognizing that a newborn baby is a newborn baby, period.
This Bill would make clear that in the United States of American, in the year 2019, the medical professionals on-hand when a baby is born alive need to maintain their basic ethical and professional responsibilities to that newborn.
It would make sure our laws reflect the fact that the human rights of newborn boys and girls are innate. They don’t come and go based on whatever the circumstances. If that medical professional comes face-to-face with a baby who’s been born alive, they are looking at a human being with human rights, period.
Mr. President, it makes me uneasy that such a basic statement seems to be generating actual disagreement. Can the far-left politics surrounding abortion really have come this far?
Are we really suppose to think that it’s normal that debating whether a newborn – whether newborn living babies deserve medical attention?
We already know that many of our Democratic colleagues want the United States to remain one of seven nations in the world that permits elected abortions after 20 weeks. Seven countries including North Korea, China, and the United States of America.
But now it seems that the far-left wants to push the envelope even farther. Apart from the entire abortion debate, they seem to be suggesting that newborn babies right to life may be contingent on the circumstances surrounding their birth.
Well, evidently the far-left is no longer convinced that all babies are [to be] treated equal, but the rest of us are still pretty fond of that principle.
So, my colleagues across the aisle need to decide where they’ll take their cues [from] in these moral questions. On one-hand, there are a few extreme voices who decided some [are more] disposable than others. On the other side is the entire rest of the country.
I would urge my colleagues, let’s listen to the voices of the American People.
Let’s reaffirm that when we say every life is created equal, we actually mean it.
Let’s vote to advance the Born-Alive Abortion Survivor’s Protection Act later today.
[Editor’s Note: Pulpit & Pen will bring you the results of this vote occurring later this evening.]
