Despite opposition from the Planned Parenthood abortion business, the Florida state House passed a bill that would provide medical care and legal protection for babies who are born alive after failed abortions.
This is the same legislation President Barack Obama refused to support during his time in the Illinois legislature and it mirrors a national law President George W. Bush signed after nurse Jill Stanek exposed how her Chicago-area hospital left babies to die in utility closets after botched abortions.
The pro-life measure, HB1129, ultimately cleared the House Criminal justice Subcommittee despite opposition from the abortion giant. The bill would require that medical care be given to newborns, likely to be premature, who survive botched abortions. The care would be given at a hospital and not at the abortion clinic.
On Wednesday, the Florida House unanimously passed the bill, sponsored by Avon Park Republican Rep. Cary Pigman, on a 119-0 vote.
Pigman, a soft-spoken freshman legislator and emergency room physician, told legislators his proposal would guarantee “respect and humanity to infants born alive, regardless of how they entered the world.”
After the vote, Gov. Rick Scott said he looks “forward to signing the bill when it reaches my desk.” The bill must still pass the full Senate.
A separate bill considered by lawmakers Wednesday would make the death of an “unborn child” a separate crime from an offense committed against the mother (SB 876). The bill would not target abortions specifically, but crimes against a pregnant mother.
Sponsor Rep. Larry Ahern, R-St. Petersburg, said 36 other states have such measures. President Bush signed federal legislation in 2004 making it a separate crime to harm a fetus during the commission of a violent crime against a pregnant woman.
A person would not have to know a woman is pregnant to be charged with a crime. Democratic lawmakers pressed Ahern with several hypothetical cases where a fetus might be injured — in a crowd, in a soccer game, in a fender-bender. Ahern said it would be up to law enforcement officers to investigate cases to see whether charges should be filed.
In opposing the bill and care of newborns who survive abortions, a Planned Parenthood lobbyist said “any decision that’s made should be left up to the woman, her family, and the physician.”
Previously a national pro-life group released footage of an undercover video showing a Planned Parenthood staff member telling a pregnant woman than babies are left to die after induced labor abortions where the baby survives the abortion procedure.
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The video shows the student going to a Title X, federally funded Planned Parenthood facility located in Freehold, New Jersey. A Planned Parenthood staffer describes how an abortion would be performed on a 22 week unborn child.
In the footage, the Planned Parenthood nurse describes to the pregnant woman that the abortion would entail delivering her son alive. After the woman asks if the baby can be born alive, the nurse admits that “it does happen…but it wouldn’t be able to survive on its own, so eventually the baby does die.”
Babies have been left to die before at abortion clinics — such as this one in Florida.
