Republican lawmakers file misleading ‘born alive’ anti-abortion bills in House and Senate

Republican lawmakers have introduced a number of anti-abortion bills since the start of the new Congress on Jan. 3. The bill introduced most recently is H.R. 21, called the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act.

Abortion rights supporters and medical professionals say that the bill is misleading. H.R. 21 would require that health care providers give the same level of medical care to an infant “born alive” during an attempted abortion as any other newborn and that the infant be “immediately transported and admitted to a hospital.” The legislation imposes a fine and up to five years behind bars or both for providers if they fail to comply.

Before a vote in the Senate on a related bill on Jan. 22, Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington said: “This isn’t how abortion works; Republicans know it. All babies are already protected under the law, regardless of the circumstance of their birth. Doctors already have a legal obligation to provide appropriate medical care.”

Although Senate Democrats blocked the related bill, which needed 60 votes to move forward, by a vote of 52-47, the House passed H.R. 21 the following day by a vote of 217-204. 

The White House praised the House’s “efforts to protect the most vulnerable and prevent infanticide,” legally defined as the murder of an infant within a year of birth. Infanticide is already against the law in the United States, as Murray pointed out, and protections for the life of a baby born alive during an attempted abortion are contained in the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act”, signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2002. 

Less than 1% of all abortions in the U.S. take place after 21 weeks of pregnancy, and the majority that do take place later in pregnancy are most often due to medical issues such as fetal anomalies or risks to the life of the pregnant person. 

Serra Sippel is the executive director of Brigid Alliance, a national nonprofit practical support organization that assists people who are forced to travel long distances, including outside of their home states, for abortion care. Sippel told the American Independent that a patient might need an abortion after the first trimester, or 12 weeks, because of abortion bans and severe restrictions that can make it impossible for patients to obtain the procedure early in a pregnancy.  

“The later in pregnancy, the fewer providers [there] are, and they are already backed up with appointments,” Sippel said.

She added that the bill’s “intention is to stigmatize people who seek abortions later in pregnancy. It is putting doctors at risk physically.” 

Over a dozen groups of medical professionals, including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, sent a letter to members of Congress expressing their opposition to the Senate and House bills. and calling them a “dangerous government intrusion into medical care. … It injects politicians into the patient-provider relationship, disregarding health care professionals’ training and clinical judgment and undermining their ability to determine the best course of action with their patients.”

Planned Parenthood president and CEO Alexis McGill Johnson said: “This bill is deliberately misleading and offensive to pregnant people, and the doctors and nurses who provide their care. At a time when we are facing a national abortion access crisis, lawmakers should be focused on how to bring more care to the communities they serve, not spending their time spreading misinformation, criminalizing doctors, and inserting themselves further into medical decisions made by health care professionals. This bill is not based in any reality of how medical care works, and it’s wrong, irresponsible, and dangerous to suggest otherwise.”