Senator Ben Sasse (R-NEB) authored the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act with only one objective in mind – to force legislators to officially go on record about whether they support infanticide.
Sasse’s bill, S. 311, aimed to ensure that, “If an abortion results in the live birth of an infant, the infant is a legal person for all purposes under the laws of the United States, and entitled to all the protections of such laws.”
The bill failed to pass the Senate on Monday, in a vote of 53-60. It needed to secure 60 votes in order to pass.
Among the senators who supported the bill were three Democrats – Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Bob Casey Jr. of Pennsylvania, and Doug Jones of Alabama. Three Republicans who did not vote on the bill were Senators Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Tim Scott of South Carolina.
According to Alexandra DeSanctis of The National Review, both Scott and Cramer missed the vote due to delayed flights. Both men were listed as co-sponsors of the legislation.
An intense debate took place on the Senate floor preceding the vote on the bill, in which Democrats falsely made claims that the legislation contained language that would deny women access to healthcare.
For example, Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) claimed that the bill “forces physicians to provide inappropriate medical treatment” and “puts Congress in the middle of the important medical decisions that patients and doctors should make together without political interference.”
Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) also spoke against the bill.
The truth of the matter is that the plainly-worded bill only requires that an infant who survives an attempted abortion be treated as a patient and taken to a hospital for medical care. Medical practitioners who failed to comply would have been subject to fines or imprisonment up to five years, or both.
The bill also took special care not to punish the mother, protecting her from prosecution “for a violation of this section, an attempt to violate this section, [or] a conspiracy to violate this section.”
“This isn’t about restricting access to abortion,” Sasse wrote in a Fox News op-ed Monday before the vote. “We’re talking about making sure that newborn babies are treated with dignity and receive care whether they’re born in the maternity wing or an abortion clinic. This is the bare minimum in humane treatment.”
Some argue that this bill is unnecessary as the issue was already addressed in the 2002 Born Alive Infants Protection Act passed by Congress under President George W. Bush. Other critics are concerned that it goes further than the 2002 legislation, specifically targeting abortion providers with additional requirements.
Senator Sasse previously introduced the bill in 2017, but it did not make it out of committee. Former Representative Marsha Blackburn had also introduced a similar bill the same year, which passed in the House but not the Senate.