Family Research Council’s Center for Human Dignity has released an updated issue brief titled “Born-Alive Abortion Survivors: Just the Facts,” along with a revised Born-Alive Protections Map. The documents highlight the lack of federal requirements to provide medical care to infants born alive after attempted abortions.
The organization points out that the Born-Alive Survivors Protection Act seeks to address this gap by mandating healthcare practitioners to give the same level of care to infants born alive following abortion attempts as they would to any other child at the same gestational age. The legislation has failed in the U.S. Senate, with significant opposition from Democratic senators, including Vice President Kamala Harris, who voted against it in both 2019 and 2020 when she represented California.
Currently, there is no federal requirement for states to report incidents involving infants born alive after abortion attempts. Family Research Council’s findings show that only eight states require such reporting. Minnesota and Michigan have recently removed these reporting requirements under Governors Tim Walz and Gretchen Witmer. In Minnesota, under Governor Walz, lawmakers also repealed a rule that required physicians to attempt to preserve the life and health of any infant born alive after an abortion.
Despite only ten states ever having mandated reporting, there are 277 documented cases of infants surviving abortion attempts. According to FRC’s map, which details state laws on this issue (https://www.frc.org/prolifemaps), 35 states have some protections in place for these infants. However, three states—New York, Illinois, and Minnesota—have eliminated such protections, while twelve other states have never enacted them.
Mary Szoch of Family Research Council stated: “Democrats in this country have lost any sense of the value of life. Their attack on life begins at fertilization, but it continues throughout the entirety of pregnancy and does not even stop after the baby is born. Vice President Kamala Harris and Governor Tim Walz have actively worked to ensure that babies born alive following abortions do not receive the help that they desperately need. Let us pray for the day when every human being is protected from the moment he or she comes into existence.”
Chantel Hoyt, Legislative Assistant at Family Research Council, added: “FRC’s map and issue brief disproves the abortion industry’s claims about abortion survivors. Abortion survivors are a very uncomfortable and inconvenient reality for the pro-abortion Left, so it’s no wonder that they actively try to prevent the gathering of state data on abortion survivors. This conversation humanizes victims and would-be victims of abortion, which they cannot tolerate. Hopefully, these resources help people to learn about the reality of abortion survivors and the horrors of abortion (at any stage) and embolden them to hold their state and federal elected officials accountable for the lack of data gathering and legal protections for these babies.”
The full report can be accessed at https://www.frc.org/bornalive.
