USA Today columnist Chris Brennan recently accused Republicans of lying about Democrat support for abortion up to — and even after — birth. As both parties now downplay protecting the most vulnerable, the idea of decriminalized infanticide — once considered extreme, even to pro-abortion stalwarts — is creeping into American law. Words matter, and leaving words undefined in law, or allowing for broad legal definitions, frequently allows for courts to interpret those laws broadly as well. This can be problematic — and, as in the case of abortion- or pregnancy- related laws, even deadly.
In an article published Sunday, Brennan claimed:
And there is Trump’s problem: So many of his right-wing supporters demand a national ban on abortion and hate hearing Trump try to distance himself from it.
Trump’s unhinged solution is to claim that President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party advocate for abortion available, “even after birth.”
That’s not true. But Trump’s most loyal supporters have shown us they don’t care about truth if you feed them incendiary lies they want to swallow. And this Trump lie, which he has trotted out repeatedly since 2016, plays well with them and maybe takes the heat off him with the right-wingers.
At the presidential debate last month, Trump stated, “The problem [Democrats] have is they’re radical, because they will take the life of a child in the eighth month, the ninth month, and even after birth.”
Biden, noted Brennan, failed to counter this claim, so Brennan unsuccessfully sought to obtain examples of states that allow infanticide from Trump’s national press secretary, Karoline Leavitt. He then turned to Planned Parenthood — not exactly an impartial source, considering the corporation is the number one abortion provider in the nation, committing approximately 40% of all abortions in the U.S.
Unsurprisingly, Planned Parenthood spokesperson Katie Rodihan told him it is “pure propaganda” to say Democrats support abortion up to and after birth. “What Trump is describing is infanticide, which is already illegal, and it is dangerous and insulting to say otherwise,” she said. “No abortions take place after birth.” She also claimed late abortions are “often a result of catastrophic medical diagnoses” — a claim debunked (by even pro-abortion sources) here.
Brennan didn’t fact-check what Rodihan told him. Instead, he simply wrote, “The notion that someone who has been pregnant for nine months and then just decides to call it quits at the last moment is absurd.”
Unfortunately, as “absurd” as the idea is, Colorado, Michigan, and California laws reveal that Democratic policies are opening the door to decriminalized infanticide, largely through the use of broad and nebulous legal terminology.
The comment that started it all
In 2019, then-Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam said in an interview, “When we talk about third-trimester abortions, these are done with the consent of, obviously, the mother with the consent of the physicians – more than one physician, by the way – and it’s done in cases where there may be severe deformities. There may be a fetus that’s nonviable. So in this particular example, if the mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen, the infant would be delivered, the infant would be kept comfortable, the infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physician and the mother.”
What he is describing is a baby with a health condition being delivered alive and either receiving proper medical care or being denied proper medical care, based on the parents’ wishes.
Pro-abortion bioethicists (like Peter Singer) have been promoting the idea of ‘abortion after birth’ — infanticide — for children with disabilities for years. In Belgium, some infants are already eligible for euthanasia.
And as already noted, some U.S. states may be on their way down a slippery slope.
“Pregnancy outcome” laws
Colorado’s law
In 2022, Colorado Governor Jared Polis signed House Bill 22-1279 into law, making abortion a “right” in the state and allowing women to make choices about abortion based on “pregnancy outcomes.” This term is vague, and could encompass things like birth, miscarriage, abortion, and even death after birth. Since these “outcomes” are undefined, a post-birth death that is caused deliberately or even by negligence is not excluded.
Experts have noted that babies who survive abortions or those born with previously undiagnosed health conditions could be left to die after birth, and no one would be prosecuted.
“Under the rules proposed by this bill, if a child is delivered alive during an abortion the doctors are under no legal compulsion to provide standard medical care as they would in any other circumstance and attempt to preserve the child’s life,” said Live Action’s Director of Government Affairs, Noah Brandt. “Medical providers would listen to the mother’s instructions, which could include not providing life-sustaining medical care to the child, which would lead to the child’s death, which most reasonable people would consider infanticide.”
Michigan’s law
In Michigan, Prop 3 also includes language that could allow for abortion survivors and babies born with disabilities to be left to die. It could also work to block prosecutions of acts of infanticide.
Prop 3 prohibits the state from “penaliz[ing], prosecut[ing], or otherwise tak[ing] adverse action against an individual based on their actual, potential, perceived, or alleged pregnancy outcomes.” The state is prevented from filing charges against anyone because of a “pregnancy outcome.” Again, this term is vague and problematic.
California’s law
California’s Reproductive Health act includes the “pregnancy outcomes” language as well.
It states, “Notwithstanding any other law, a person shall not be subject to civil or criminal liability or penalty, or otherwise deprived of their rights under this article, based on their actions or omissions with respect to their pregnancy or actual, potential, or alleged pregnancy outcome, including miscarriage, stillbirth, or abortion, or perinatal death due to causes that occurred in utero.”
This bill failed to define “perinatal death,” allowing for a loophole for doctors or abortionists to use their own discretion in allowing a baby to die rather than provide him or her with medical care.
For example, a “perinatal death due to causes that occurred in utero” could allow a baby who survived an abortion to die from injuries sustained in the abortion even if there is life-saving care available. It could also allow a baby to die because he was deprived of oxygen during delivery or may have a health condition related to his mother’s alcohol use during pregnancy. This language could allow infanticide based on discrimination.
Reasons for late abortions
Late abortions are most often carried out for the same reasons as early abortions.
“The reasons people need third-trimester abortions are not so different from why people need abortions before the third trimester…” reads a study from the pro-abortion group Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH). “[T]he circumstances that lead to someone needing a third-trimester abortion have overlaps with the pathways to abortion at other gestations.”
While the study doesn’t detail the reasons women give for late abortions, it does note that women have abortions in the third trimester for multiple reasons, including the fact they didn’t know they were pregnant, that they had difficulty arranging abortions, and that the baby had a health problem or disability.
None of the abortions in the study were committed due to the mother’s health being at risk.
In addition, in 2016, the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute admitted that most late abortions are not medically indicated. That report revealed that at least 75% of abortions at 13 weeks and beyond were elective — meaning the mother chose to abort her baby after 13 weeks without any indication of a medical condition existing.
Though it is, indeed, “radical” to “take the life of a child in the eighth month, the ninth month, and even after birth,” it is also “radical” to take the life of a child at any time. A human being doesn’t gradually become more human; he or she is a member of the human species from the moment of fertilization.
