Despite further amendments made to AB 2223 in California, it looks like the already incredibly pro-abortion state will make infanticide legal. Townhall has been covering the trajectory of the bill since March, including the intense backlash. The current bill, with amendments, as explained by the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), is even more clear in its original intention that this bill has to do with abortion and potentially infanticide as it addresses the "perinatal" period, or up to 28-days after birth.
"After receiving our analysis, the California Assembly Committee on Appropriations, on May 19, amended and voted to pass Assembly Bill 2223 (AB 2223). However, as with the previous amendments to AB 2223, the term “perinatal” has not been removed, and nothing has been changed in the bill to actually fix any of its problems," an ACLJ post from Olivia Summers explained on Wednesday.
As Summers also wrote, with original emphasis:
As we have explained extensively, the term “perinatal” refers to a period of time generally encompassing the 20th to 28th week of gestation up until 28 days after birth. And, the bill – as originally written – could be interpreted as protecting both a woman (and any person assisting a woman) from civil and criminal liability related to the death of an infant in the perinatal period for “any reason.”
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In fact, the latest amendment just makes the purpose behind the bill even more clear than it was originally. The latest amendment takes the phrase “perinatal death due to a pregnancy-related cause” and changes it to “perinatal death due to causes that occurred in utero.”
Let’s break this down:
- Perinatal = up to 28 days after birth
- Death = a baby born alive who subsequently dies
- Due to = death caused by
- Causes that occurred in utero = woman has ingested chemical abortion bills to cause an abortion, the pill isn’t effective, and the baby is born alive and then left to die
The author of the bill has repeatedly claimed that the purpose of the perinatal language is to protect women from prosecution “for any tragic situation that may happen during pregnancy,” and has referred to “two California women, Adora Perez and Chelsea Becker, who served jail time after delivering stillborn babies whose deaths were linked to their mothers’ methamphetamine abuse. The charges in both cases were recently dropped.”
But these examples fall into the “stillbirth” category that is included in the bill, and not the “perinatal death” category.
Try as they may to amend the bill or change the language to make it sound more acceptable, California lawmakers are refusing to acknowledge the fact that they are talking about failing to protect an innocent human being who is born alive simply because they were “unwanted” and meant to be killed before they took their first breath.
It's worth highlighting that if there's any question as to if the bill is likely going for the pro-infanticide route when it comes to post-birth abortions, it's been categorized as "Reproductive health" and even "Reproductive justice" at one point.
"A critical part of realizing reproductive justice for people in California is clarifying that there shall be no civil and criminal penalties for people’s actual, potential, or alleged pregnancy outcomes," one part of the bill reads.
In a warning about the bill in March, Wesley J. Smith wrote for National Review Online how the legislation has been "given a racial tinge."
For instance, Section 1 notes that "The Legislature finds and declares," among other things, that "Reproductive justice is a framework created by Black women in 1994 to address the intersectional and multifactored issues that women of color and their families face in society."
If one doesn't think that Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) won't sign the bill should it get to his desk, think again. The pro-abortion stalwart hasn't seen an abortion bill he doesn't like. As Madeline has been reporting, Newsom is dead-set on making California into a "sanctuary" for abortion, and has formed the California Future of Abortion Council.
This bill actually has support from the council, with Newsom saying they were forming the council as they were "looking at ways to expand our protections" on abortion.
Further, the Democratic Party as a whole has shown, for the most part, to be pro-infanticide.
In both 2019 and 2020, the U.S. Senate voted on but failed to pass legislation introduced by Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE), the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which would enforce legal protections for babies born alive from abortions. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has refused to even allow such a bill to come up for a vote, though Republicans are currently trying to force that vote through through a discharge petition.
At the state level, Democratic governors, including Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina and then-Gov. Steve Bullock of Montana, have vetoed such bills. Gov. Andy Beshear, also a Democrat, allowed such a bill to become law in Kentucky without his signature and he has vetoed other pro-life bills.