On Tuesday, the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act once again failed in the U.S. Senate because 41 Democrats blocked it from going to a full vote. Fifty-six senators — including three Democrats — voted for cloture on the legislation, but Democrats could block the final vote using the filibuster, a Senate mechanism presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has said she wants to abolish.
Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) vocally condemned the Democrats who would not act to protect babies who have been born alive in failed abortions. Sasse explained that the bill is “about babies that are born that are outside their mother.”
He blamed Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) for “wanting to obscure the debate” by using “euphemisms about choice so that you don’t have to admit to the American public that what’s actually happening on the floor today is probably that, like last year, 44 Democrats are going to filibuster an anti-infanticide bill.” Last year, every 2020 Democrat in the Senate voted against the bill, blocking it by filibuster. On Tuesday, the three remaining senators in the race — Warren, Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) — did not vote.
Democrats may defend their votes by claiming the bill in question undermines abortion, but Sasse cut straight through that false argument.
“There’s nothing in the bill that’s about abortion. Nothing. It’s about infanticide. That’s the actual legislation,” Sasse declared. “And you got 44 people over there who want to hide from it and talk in euphemisms about abortion because they don’t want to defend the indefensible.”
“We’re talking about killing babies that are born. That’s the actual legislation we’re voting on today in the Senate. That’s what the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act is. Is it okay, in the eyes of the United States Senate, for us to say, ‘Well, you can’t actively kill the little baby. You can’t take a pillow and put it over her face and smother her to death, but you can back away and kill her that way.’ That’s what Ralph Northam, the disgraced governor of Virginia, was talking about when he said, ‘Well, once the baby’s born, if she survives an abortion and we wish that hadn’t happened, then we’ll figure out a way to keep her calm for a little while while the doctors decide what they want to do.’ What he means is kill the baby. That’s the legislation we’re voting on today,” Sasse added.
The Nebraska senator explained that the Senate was considering three pieces of legislation: Sen. Lindsy Graham (R-S.C.)’s act to protect babies who are capable of feeling pain, the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, and a Democrat bill aimed at directing funding to prevent maternal deaths. Sasse said he is open to supporting such a measure, but he condemned the Democrats’ tactic of using this bill to distract from the efforts to protect abortion survivors.
He harshly criticized the media for misrepresenting the bill.
“Newsflash, CNN, if you’re a baby and you’ve been born and you’re outside a momma, nobody calls that a fetus. You just want to call that a fetus because you don’t want to cover the actual story that’s being voted on in the U.S. Senate today,” Sasse insisted.
It is truly heinous that Democrats like Ralph Northam would defend the killing of babies who have been born alive in a botched abortion. This infanticide seems reminiscent of the ancient Roman practice of exposure: like Northam, the Romans would not actually physically kill their babies, but they would leave them in the elements to die. The early Christians set themselves apart by valuing every human life, saving the children who had been exposed.
The Declaration of Independence sets forth the inalienable right to life, yet Democrats seem unwilling to protect the lives of babies, even after they have been born. As Sasse noted, this goes beyond abortion — although it does illustrate the evils of abortion. If abortion advocates are afraid that defending babies outside the womb will undermine their efforts to defend killing babies inside the womb, that merely reinforces the fact of what abortion is.
Just like the advocates for the expansion of slavery before the Civil War, abortion advocates engage in the systematic dehumanization of a group of human beings. Democrat’s refusal to protect babies who have already been born alive merely highlights how radical they truly are.
🔥🔥🔥
These @BenSasse remarks on the Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act are worth your time. They came in the midst of an actual Senate floor debate on abortion. pic.twitter.com/tBvI4l75PI
— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) February 25, 2020
Tyler O’Neil is the author of Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Follow him on Twitter at @Tyler2ONeil.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member