The House of Representatives passed H.R. 3504 last month. Titled the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors’ Protection Act, it requires that medical care be given to infants who live through abortions. Or at least it would if it were signed into law.
President Obama has made clear that isn’t going to happen.
This isn’t new for Obama. He opposed similar legislation in Illinois, too. While nurse Jill Stanek testified about infants being left to die in a hospital utility closet, state Senator Obama remained unmoved. He declared that “if these children are being born alive, I, at least, have confidence that a doctor who is in that room is going to make sure that they’re looked after.”
The President should probably talk to people in the abortion industry about that. They might have some different ideas.
Planned Parenthood lobbyist Alisa LaPolt Snow certainly did. Snow appeared before Florida legislators in 2013 and was asked what should happen when a child survives an abortion. She felt the “decision should be between the patient and the healthcare provider.” When a lawmaker asked whether or not “the patient would be the child struggling on the table,” Snow called it “a very good question.” Apparently Dr. Cassing Hammond has an answer: No.
Hammond directs the Center for Family Planning and Contraception at Northwestern University, and in 2014 he attended a National Abortion Federation conference. During a segment on second trimester abortions, Hammond spoke about using an injection to kill pre-born children before they’re dismembered in the womb. Twenty minutes and twenty seconds into the video clip above, he says:
We do recommend feticidal injections after a certain gestational age, but interestingly, only because we can’t guarantee at the extremes of certain gestational ages that they won’t be subject to resuscitation against the patient’s wishes.
So there you have it: Hammond doesn’t inject babies with poison to keep them from suffering while they’re torn apart. Rather, he does it to make sure no one can help them if they come out alive.
This mindset isn’t unique. Live Action volunteers documented it in 2013 when they took hidden cameras to multiple late-term abortion clinics. Pregnant and claiming to want abortions, the volunteers asked what happens when a baby survives. A staffer in New York City said the child would be put in a “jar of solution.” Meanwhile, Washington, D.C.’s Dr. Cesare Santangelo explained that he doesn’t render assistance to surviving newborns, admitting that “it’s happened before.”
Former tissue procurement technician Holly O’Donnell encountered the same attitude. O’Donnell worked for StemExpress, a company that collected organs from aborted children and had a long relationship with Planned Parenthood. In a video put out by the Center for Medical Progress, O’Donnell recalled how she was told, at Planned Parenthood Mar Monte in California, to harvest brain matter from an aborted fetus whose heart was still beating.
Allegations like O’Donnell’s and large amounts of incriminating footage have led to a Congressional investigation of Planned Parenthood, America’s largest abortion chain. Witnesses have included Gianna Jessen and Melissa Ohden, both of whom survived attempted abortions. They received life saving medical care, but that was unusual: surviving newborns are often either denied care or deliberately finished off.
Next year, Americans will pick a new chief executive, who will either defend infants and support survivor legislation or won’t. We will have leaders in Congress who will either redirect Planned Parenthood’s funding to community health centers or they won’t.
While President Obama might “have confidence” that abortionists will care for newborns, pro-lifers know the truth.
