WASHINGTON — Sen. Mike Lee R-UT spoke on the floor of the Senate Monday, regarding the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which was set to be considered in the evening.
The bill amends federal code in the following ways:
“This bill amends the federal criminal code to require any health care practitioner who is present when a child is born alive following an abortion or attempted abortion to: (1) exercise the same degree of care as reasonably provided to any other child born alive at the same gestational age, and (2) ensure that such child is immediately admitted to a hospital.”
“The Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act takes no position on abortion, or the rights of the unborn,” Lee said. “It simply says that, in this country, when a child is born – even if by accident, even in the most dangerous place in the world for an infant – a Planned Parenthood clinic – he or she becomes a citizen of the United States under our Constitution, entitled to the full protection of our laws.”
The bill describes the term “born alive” as the complete expulsion or extraction of the baby from their mother, at any stage of development, who breathes or has a beating heart, pulse in the umbilical cord, or movement of voluntary muscles, regardless of whether the umbilical cord has been cut.
“Boy or girl, black or white, rich or poor. Each deserves—paraphrasing the immortal words of Abraham Lincoln—an unfettered start, and a fair chance, in the race of life,” Lee said. “This is the essence of what it means to have rights, and to be entitled to the equal protection of our laws.”
A health care practitioner or another employee who has knowledge of a failure to comply with the act “must immediately report such failure to an appropriate law enforcement agency,” the bill states.
To view Lee’s full remarks, click here.
