By Dave Andrusko
Among the many egregiously misguided comments voiced by the two moderators, viewers of Tuesday’s presidential debate heard ABC News’s Linsey Davis sternly “correct” former president Donald Trump, saying “There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it’s born.”
Since she told the Los Angeles Times that she had prepped for a response on abortion, she couldn’t say she was caught unawares. Harris also avoided having to say how far into pregnancy she would allow abortion:
DAVIS: Vice President Harris, I want to give you your time to respond. But I do want to ask, would you support any restrictions on a woman’s right to an abortion?
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: I absolutely support reinstating the protections of Roe v. Wade.
The implication is that Roe v. Wade placed some limitations on when a woman can abort, a canard that National Right to Life has debunked over and over again. (By the way what does Harris mean by “the protections of Roe of Wade”?)
There is a fundamental distinction to be made. There are ways to kill a baby after they are born that does not require a deliberate act of violence. The child can be killed by medical neglect—passive euthanasia.
Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life (MCCL) is familiar with late-term abortions and medical neglect of abortion survivors.
MCCL Co-Executive Director Cathy Blaeser addressed the issues in the following way:
“In 2023, Gov. Walz signed a bill (HF 1) creating a right to abortion for any reason and at any time during pregnancy. But he went even further: He also signed a bill (SF 2995) repealing a requirement to provide medically appropriate lifesaving care to born-alive infants. Under Walz’s legislation, viable babies could be set aside, with only comfort care, and allowed to die. Babies with disabilities, whose lives are often devalued, are especially at risk. Minnesota’s abortion policy is now as extreme as any in the world—and serves as an ominous sign of what a Harris-Walz administration would pursue in the White House.”
Previously, Minnesota law guaranteed medically appropriate lifesaving treatment for infants who survive abortion. In 2023, though, the legislature and Gov. Walz repealed the requirement that “reasonable measures consistent with good medical practice” be taken “to preserve the life and health of the born alive infant.” They replaced the requirement for lifesaving measures with a requirement for only “care” (which the bill’s author described as “comfort” care throughout committee discussions and floor debate). Moreover, the new law no longer applies specifically to babies who survive abortion, but rather to all babies who are born alive.
According to MCCL
In recent years, five born-alive abortion survivors were reported in 2015, five in 2016, three in 2017, three in 2018, three in 2019, and five in 2021, according to the Minnesota Department of Health. This information, however, will no longer be available; the bill Walz signed (SF 2995) repealed the requirement that practitioners of abortion report cases of born-alive infants and the measures taken to care for them.
We will hear over and over again that the pro-abortion team of Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz does not support unlimited abortion or killing the child after their birth by withholding medical treatment that would be afforded to a preemie delivered at the same gestational age.
They do.