House Republicans on Thursday passed their version of a “born-alive” abortion bill one day after Democrats blocked the Senate version from advancing.
The bill requires health care practitioners to provide the “same degree of professional skill, care, and diligence” for a child born alive during an attempted abortion, as they would during normal childbirth.
Republicans have framed the bill as not being anti-abortion but anti-infanticide. Democrats have criticized the legislation as being redundant as killing infants born alive after an attempted termination, a rare occurrence, is already illegal and the bill only serves to “criminalize” doctors.
Health care practitioners who fail to comply with the law would face fines and up to five years in jail or both.
The Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act previously passed in the House in 2023 with a vote of 220-210-1. At the time, Texas Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar joined Republicans in voting for the bill while Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-Texas) voted “present.” It also previously passed in 2015.
The bill passed in the House Thursday with a vote of 217-204. One Democrat voted in support for the bill while another voted “present.”
Its passage comes just one day before the anti-abortion March for Life in Washington on Friday.
On Wednesday, the Senate Republicans attempted to invoke cloture on their version of the bill but without the needed 60 votes, the motion failed. Republicans framed the motion’s failure as Democrats voting against a bill combatting infanticide.
“The bill would have created a new standard of care for physicians providing reproductive health care that is not based in medicine, fact, or science. In fact, it is already law that any child born in America—regardless of the circumstances surrounding that birth—is afforded equal protections,” Democratic whip Sen. Dick Durbin (Ill.) said after the motion failed.
Prior to the bill’s passage in the House, newly sworn in Democratic Rep. Kelly Morrison (Minn.), an OB/GYN, blasted the bill as “cruel” to patients.
“Sometimes medical complications can prevent a patient’s dreams of building her family from coming true,” Morrison said. “The moment when a patient and her family learn about a lethal fetal medical condition that is incompatible with life; it is devastating. The pain and the grief in that moment is unfathomable. You can never unhear the mother’s cries of despair.”
“This bill is cruel. It singles out patients who are facing the worst days of their lives. This bill does not solve a problem,” she added. “Doctors are already both honored and obligated to provide appropriate care for their patients.”
GOP Rep. Michelle Fischbach (Minn.) said the legislation is “not about abortion” but instead about “medical care for babies.”
“These children are not junk! They cannot be treated as so much garbage! This legislation tries to say we need to protect them once they were born after the abortion,” Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) shouted on the floor.
“This is humane, pro-child, pro-human rights legislation and I hope my colleagues on the other side realize these children have great value,” added Smith.
Of the available data on infants born alive following an attempted abortion, between 2003 and 2014, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recorded “143 deaths involving induced terminations.”
In their objections to the bill, several House Democrats shared their experiences of losing wanted pregnancies and choosing to terminate in order to preserve the health of them or their family members.
New York Timothy M. Kennedy (D) shared how he and his wife learned her pregnancy was no longer viable and threatened her life.
“The last thing we needed was legislation that served to stand between the health of my wife, unborn child and the future of our family,” he added. “If this bill had been law, doctors would have been required to whisk Bridget away from us inhumanely, poke and prod our baby girl with tubes, needles and IVs, causing her needless pain, suffering and torture.”
