Senate Passes “Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act”

Legislation requires health practitioners to care for a child who enters the world alive, regardless of the circumstances of that birth

Implements new penalties for health workers who refuse to care for a child who is born alive

Raleigh, N.C. — The North Carolina Senate today passed the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act by a margin of 28–19 votes. Senators Joyce Krawiec (R-Forsyth), Amy Galey (R-Alamance), and Lisa S. Barnes (R-Nash) sponsored the bill.

The legislation creates a new legal duty of care for health practitioners to treat an infant born alive after a failed abortion. It is limited only to instances in which a child is completely extracted from his or her mother and displays signs of life (e.g., has a beating heart or is breathing). The bill asserts that a child that is completely extracted from his or her mother has the same rights as any other human who is alive after leaving the mother.

Some have claimed that existing law already covers the matter addressed in this bill. But the General Assembly’s nonpartisan Legislative Analysis Division reported that “there are currently no laws requiring an affirmative duty of care to preserve the life of infants who survive attempted abortions.”

Sen. Krawiec said, “This bill only requires infants be given proper medical care after they’re born. Some say the bill is unnecessary, but the legislature clarifies ambiguities in law all the time. That legislators would support those modifications, but not this one, lays bare the reality that they just can’t bring themselves to vote on any abortion-related bill for fear of alienating the far left.”

Sen. Galey said, “This bill simply requires medical care for an infant born alive. Its opponents oppose any bill whatsoever that puts any guardrails on abortions. A bill cannot be both ‘unnecessary’ because it’s already covered by existing law and ‘extreme’ in going too far. Allowing an infant to die is universally morally wrong, and it should be illegal as well.”

Sen. Barnes said, “I find it hard to believe that there’s disagreement over whether a living human being, fully extracted from his or her mother, has the same rights as every other living human being, but it turns out some people don’t agree with that notion.”

During debate on the bill, Democrats alleged that there are no documented cases of post-abortion survivors in North Carolina. While no agency in North Carolina is tasked with publicly reporting this information, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that there were at least 143 infants who died between 2003 and 2013 after being born alive following an abortion.

Democrats also alleged that the legislation restricts a woman’s ability to access an abortion. But the legislation has no provisions regarding pre-birth abortion procedures; it simply requires care be given to an infant born alive after an attempted abortion.

The bill will now move to the House of Representatives for consideration.