Kentucky Committee Passes Bill to Stop Infanticide, Require Care for Babies Surviving Abortion

State   |   Micaiah Bilger   |   Mar 1, 2019   |   10:46AM   |   Frankfort, KY

Kentucky is becoming a leader in the fight for babies targeted for death by abortion.

Along with a slew of other pro-life legislation, state lawmakers voted Thursday to advance a bill that would require abortionists to provide basic medical care to babies who survive abortions, the AP reports.

Kentucky Senate Bill 227, sponsored by state Sen. Whitney Westerfield, would require that “reasonable life-saving and life-sustaining” medical care be provided to infants who are born alive after failed abortions. Medical professionals who violate the measure could face criminal penalties and have their license revoked.

“Surely, there can be no debate that life exists at birth and we should do what we can to protect those children,” Westerfield said.

He told the Courier Journal that the full state Senate could vote on the bill as soon as Thursday.

However, Planned Parenthood quickly lashed out against the bill, telling the local news that it is nothing more than “inflammatory political rhetoric.” The abortion chain’s spokesperson Tamarra Wieder even claimed “there is no such thing” as an abortion survivor – contradicting numerous personal testimonies as well as Centers for Disease Control data.

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Here’s more from the report:

Westerfield said he isn’t aware of any such incidents of an infant born alive in Kentucky from a failed abortion. State law bans abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, and a fetus isn’t considered viable until about 24 weeks of gestation.

“I can’t say I’ve seen or heard of accounts of it happening in Kentucky,” he said.

But Westerfield said he has heard anecdotal accounts of such occurrences around the country and believes Kentucky should have a law addressing potential situations.

Earlier this week, abortion survivor Claire Culwell testified before Kentucky lawmakers about another pro-life bill that would ban abortions after an unborn baby’s heartbeat is detectable. She and other abortion survivors like Melissa Ohden and Gianna Jessen are living proof that babies sometimes do survive abortions.

Reports by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) also indicate that there are infants born alive after botched abortions in the U.S. According to Congressional testimony:

Data that the CDC collects also confirms babies are born alive after attempted abortions.  Between the years 2003 and 2014 there were somewhere between 376 and 588 infant deaths under the medical code P96.4 which keeps track of babies born alive after a “termination of pregnancy.”

The CDC concluded that of the 588 babies, 143 were “definitively” born alive after an attempted abortion and they lived from minutes to one or more days, with 48% of the babies living between one to four hours.  It also admitted that it’s possible the number is an underestimate (B).

Westerfield’s bill is similar to legislation that pro-abortion Democrats blocked in the U.S. House and Senate earlier this week. Demonstrating their loyalty to the billion-dollar abortion industry, Democrats blocked the Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act several times this February. The bill requires abortionists to provide the same basic medical care to an infant born alive after a failed abortion that a doctor would to any other infant born at that stage of pregnancy.

Also moving through the Kentucky legislature are bills to ban abortions after an unborn baby’s heartbeat is detectable and to ban abortions completely when the U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade. Another bill would protect unborn baby girls and unborn babies with Down syndrome from discriminatory abortions.