North Carolina lawmakers are debating a topic that's caused controversy in Congress. They're considering a bill to charge doctors with a felony if they don't provide medical care to a child born alive during an abortion.
It's not clear how often that situation arises. The state already outlaws murder as well as infanticide.
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But Republican state senators say it isn't protecting infants who are born alive during late-term abortions.
A similar bill died in the US Senate recently. Critics there - and here - say it's a manufactured controversy with little basis in fact.
The origin of the bill seems to be a claim by an anti-abortion activist named Jill Stanek. About 20 years ago, Stanek says she worked in a hospital where abortions were performed. She says she saw babies left to die by medical personnel after being aborted.
Sen. Joyce Krawiec, R-Forsyth, is sponsor of a bill that would make it a felony not to try to save the baby's life. She blamed a culture that she says increasingly devalues human life.
"A right to an abortion should not translate to the right for a dead child no matter what happens," Krawiec said. "He or she should be treated with the same degree of medical concern that any other child born whether wanted or not is treated."
Sen Terry Van Duyn, D-Buncombe, was visibly angry.
“This is a political stunt, and that’s all it is,” Van Duyn said. “This is not what happens. Abortions in the last trimester are very rare, and you are talking about situations that the Supreme Court has been very clear on.”
That drew fire from Sen. Jerry Tillman, R-Randolph. “We’ve got dying babies laying there and somebody’s got to care for them,” he admonished Van Duyn. “That is a living, breathing child.”
“You call this bill a stunt, Senator van Duyn?” Tillman continued. “We just witnessed a big stunt right there, and it was you that was the stunt.”
Sen. Floyd McKissick pointed out that existing laws against murder and infanticide would already outlaw any deliberate act to kill a child or allow it to die uncared-for, but said doctors sometimes have to balance the mother’s best interest with that of the child.
“We don’t need to go in there and try to second guess doctors and try to criminalize their behavior,” said McKissick, D-Durham.
“That doctor is the sole person who needs to make that decision.”
Sen. Dan Bishop, R-Mecklenburg, disagreed. “They are not sole judges of life and death.”
“Doctors do not let babies die. I’m sorry, that does not happen,” responded Van Duyn. “It is deliberately being mischaracterized to shame women and to make a court case to overturn Roe v Wade.”
“If we can paint a portrait that makes people think that doctors do that, we are one step closer to taking away from women a potentially life-saving procedure, based on our ideology," she said. "And that’s wrong.”
Roe v. Wade is the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortions.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, only 1% of abortions in 2015 were late term. And in cases where the fetus was born alive, two-thirds were either fatal birth defects or presented a risk to the mother's life.
Lindsay Robinson, director of public affairs for Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, said, “Senate Bill 359 targets health care providers who provide safe and legal abortion care with the threat of a serious criminal penalty. The bill is based on a false narrative, not grounded in medical science or fact, that doctors aren’t providing appropriate care. The implication that medical professionals are providing unethical or substandard care is insulting to physicians providing care every day across North Carolina.
"We know the real reason these claims are being pushed, to stigmatize reproductive health care and manufacture outrage over something that isn’t happening to distract from what actually is. In reality, proponents of this bill have a single agenda of pushing bills like SB 359 all the way to the United States Supreme Court in order to overturn Roe v. Wade. These politicians’ motives have long been clear -- to ban safe abortion altogether."
A similar bill will be heard in a House committee tomorrow.
A proposed federal "Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act" failed in the U.S. Senate in February, setting off a caustic exchange between Democrats and Republicans, with President Donald Trump tweeting that Democrats are "now so extreme that they don't mind executing babies AFTER birth."
Democrats said infanticide was already covered by homicide laws and accused Republicans of creating controversy in an attempt to restrict abortion.