Outrage. That was the number-one emotion lighting up my Facebook page, as friend after friend expressed their deep and justified anger at the blockage of a U.S. Senate bill to stop infanticide by the nearly uniform opposition of Senate Democrats.
Although the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act received 53 votes, 60 votes were required to move the bill forward (in the jargon, “invoke cloture”). And I have to ask myself, “Why?”
Why is it that duly elected lawmakers would not want to ensure that a baby born alive from a botched abortion is guaranteed the same care any other preemie of a similar age would receive? Why would our government leaders fail in protecting the most vulnerable among us?
I suppose I could come up with a number of reasons—a lack of compassion, a blindness toward the essential needs of newborns, a callousness that comes from too many years in the political world serving the likes of Planned Parenthood and NARAL.
But I believe the fundamental rationale for Monday’s chilling vote dates back more than 40 years, to the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court ruling Roe v. Wade. That tragic court decision, which still holds fast today, brought about a shocking disregard for innocent human life.
For once a baby is aborted in a mother’s womb, what’s to prevent attacks on babies who have actually been born? The line of “acceptability” moves further and further until our nation’s leaders shrug at infanticide.
The bill’s sponsor, Senator Ben Sasse (R-Nebraska), alluded to the ideological smokescreen put up by the bill’s opponents: “I urge my colleagues to picture a baby that’s already been born, that’s outside the womb gasping for air. That’s the only thing that today’s vote is actually about. We’re talking about babies that have already been born. Nothing in this bill touches abortion access.”
Yet, to the vast majority of Senate Democrats, everything is about abortion. They are willing to stop at nothing to defend the brutal practice, in which a baby dies, and a mother is left to grieve her lost child. Pro-abortion politics taints whatever it touches, and now the Senate is forever stained by this tragic vote.
As my father used to say, “Who weeps for the victim?” Time and again, it is the pro-lifer who defends the innocent from the dawn of life to the twilight of life.
And what about those Democratic Presidential candidates in the Senate who sided with infanticide? Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, Amy Klobuchar, and Elizabeth Warren? Remember their names, especially as the campaign season intensifies over the coming year.
It is our responsibility to remind them why they are ultimately on the losing side, whether they recognize it or not. History will side with life, and generations hence will wonder at the utter intransigence of those who fail to defend the right to life.
Daniel Miller is responsible for nearly all of National Right to Life News' political writing.
With the election of Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency, Daniel Miller developed a deep obsession with U.S. politics that has never let go of the political scientist. Whether it's the election of Joe Biden, the midterm elections in Congress, the abortion rights debate in the Supreme Court or the mudslinging in the primaries - Daniel Miller is happy to stay up late for you.
Daniel was born and raised in New York. After living in China, working for a news agency and another stint at a major news network, he now lives in Arizona with his two daughters.
