In the wake of Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam's radio interview where he made bizarre remarks about extending the "right to choose" to after-birth abortion (or medical neglect), Sen. Ben Sasse authored the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. Late in the afternoon on Feb. 25, extremist Senate Democrats voted in favor of legalized infanticide.
The bill would require health care providers to "exercise the same degree of professional skill, care, and diligence to preserve the life and health of the child" who survives abortion as they would to "any other child born alive at the same gestational age." The bill failed to invoke a cloture vote because 44 Democrats voted in favor of infanticide, including seven presidential aspirants -- Sens. Cory Booker, Sherrod Brown, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
Forget massive tax increases and incoherent green deals. This should terrify us.
President Trump tweeted: "The Democrat position on abortion is now so extreme that they don't mind executing babies AFTER birth. ... This will be remembered as one of the most shocking votes in the history of Congress. If there is one thing we should all agree on, it's protecting the lives of innocent babies."
What was network TV coverage of this vote in the first 24 hours? Zero on ABC, CBS and NBC. Hours after, Sanders appeared in an hourlong "town hall" on CNN and did not get a single question on this. Warren was interviewed by Chris Hayes on MSNBC for 11 minutes and no question.
These networks offered more airtime and sympathy to vicious "ISIS bride" Hoda Muthana trying to re-enter America than they did for defenseless newborn babies, just as they felt the story of Northam wearing blackface was far worse than his favoring a woman's "right to choose" infanticide. Blackface drew hours of coverage, and infanticide drew about five and a half minutes on the Big Three network shows.
The Democrats claimed the bill was unnecessary, since babies rarely survive abortions and when they do, they're typically unable to surviving long outside the womb. You know what else is rare? Waterboarding a few suspected terrorists. But they railed against that for years.
Sen. Tom Cotton rebutted the Democrats, saying that in Florida alone in 2017 -- in "one state in one year" -- 11 babies were born alive after attempted abortion. Someone could raise these babies free of medical violence.
Even if this were to save just one baby -- one tender little innocent child -- isn't it worth it? Not if you don't believe these children have a right to live.
Democrats sounded like Northam. Sen. Tina Smith complained the bill "puts Congress in the middle of the important medical decisions that patients and doctors should fix together without political interference." It's part of a "war on women's health," insisted Sen. Jeanne Shaheen. Sen. Mazie Hirono bizarrely claimed the bill would force doctors "to provide care that is unnecessary or even harmful to patients."
Caring for a baby -- even a doomed baby -- is "harmful"?
They also tried to claim survivors of abortion are already protected by the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act of 2002. That law established that in federal law, the terms "person," "human being," "child" and "individual" include every infant born alive, even after an abortion. But it did not punish doctors for aiding infanticide. When that law passed and was signed by then-President Bush 17 years ago, the network coverage was ... zero.
If we can accept infanticide as a viable position, our civilization is finished.
L. Brent Bozell III is the president of the Media Research Center. Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org.
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