Patterico's Pontifications

2/26/2019

Congressman Threatens Witness

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 8:19 pm



Congressman Matt Gaetz:

UPDATE: Here is a screenshot, since he has deleted it:

Screen Shot 2019-02-27 at 7.25.28 AM

Gaetz should be censured. Norms matter. We can’t stand by when stuff like this happens and pretend it’s OK. It’s not.

But he’s just taking after his President, who already threatened the same witness’s family.

These people make me sick.

UPDATE: Ken White on why Gaetz’s tweet may have been a crime:

[Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.]

Democrats Say No To Providing Medical Care To Infants Who Survive Abortions

Filed under: General — Dana @ 10:30 am



[guest post by Dana]

This is the heart and soul of the Democrat party laid bare for all to see in the full shame of their extremism: A piece of legislation that does not touch abortion rights but mandates that a baby who survives an abortion is to receive the same level of medical care from a doctor as any other baby born alive is rejected by Democrats, with the exception of a mere three individuals courageous enough to cross the aisle and vote for a simple act of mercy toward the most vulnerable among us.

The Senate vote on Ben Sasse’s Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act took place yesterday. The legislation, which would have augmented existing law by mandating that abortionists send born-alive babies to hospitals for care, fell short of the 60 votes needed to advance. The final vote was 53-44. Democrats Joe Manchin, Bob Casey and Doug Jones voted with Republicans in support of the legislation. The three Republicans missing the vote were Tim Scott and Kevin Cramer (both due to delayed flights), and Lisa Murkowski.

Had the Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act passed, it would have ensured that a baby who survived an abortion would be entitled to “the same degree” of care that a baby born alive would be given, as well requiring babies born alive to be immediately sent to hospitals for care:

“(1) DEGREE OF CARE REQUIRED; IMMEDIATE ADMISSION TO A HOSPITAL.—Any health care practitioner present at the time the child is born alive shall—

“(A) exercise the same degree of professional skill, care, and diligence to preserve the life and health of the child as a reasonably diligent and conscientious health care practitioner would render to any other child born alive at the same gestational age; and

“(B) following the exercise of skill, care, and diligence required under subparagraph (A), ensure that the child born alive is immediately transported and admitted to a hospital.

Failure to enact these protections by medical professionals would have rendered serious consequences:

Doctors who violate those requirements and other medical staffers who don’t report violations could face fines and up to five years in prison. Doctors who intentionally kill a child born alive after an abortion would face prosecution under federal murder statutes — potentially a death penalty or life in prison.

Sasse stressed that the bill was not an attempt to restrict a woman’s access to abortion, but it instead focused solely on the care and well being of a baby who survives an abortion:

I urge my colleagues to picture a baby that’s already been born, that’s outside the womb gasping for air. That’s the only thing that today’s vote is actually about. We’re talking about babies that have already been born. Nothing in this bill touches abortion access.

Sasse also refuted the Chuck Schumer’s dishonest claims “that the born-alive bill “is carefully crafted to target, intimidate, and shut down reproductive health care providers,” [and] claimed the bill “would impose requirements on what type of care doctors must provide in certain circumstances, even if that care is ineffective, contradictory to medical evidence, and against the family’s wishes.”

Repeating their own words back to them Sasse appealed to the leading Democratic candidates to support the legislation. Unfortunately, their lofty words proved empty when moral courage was needed:

Cory Booker: We ought to build a country where no one is forgotten, no one is left behind.

Kamala Harris: I knew that the people in our society who are most often targeted by predators are also most often the voiceless and vulnerable.

Elizabeth Warren: No matter where you live in America …no matter where you live in America, you deserve a path to opportunity…

Kirsten Gillibrand: I’m going to run for president of the United States because as a young mom, I am going to fight for other people’s kids as hard as I would fight for my own.

It couldn’t have been easier: Do you believe that an infant who has survived an abortion should receive medical treatment and be cared for by a doctor just like any other baby that is born alive? The legislation did nothing to curtail or inhibit abortion rights, in spite of Democrats’ dishonest claims otherwise. It simply asked that these tiny little lives be afforded some humanity in the aftermath of a barbaric act.

As Joni Ernst made very clear:

My colleagues across the aisle are debating a bill that’s not in front of us. They are talking about health care for women, which is abortion. This bill does not address abortion. . . . What this bill does is address the health care of a baby that is born alive after a botched abortion. We’re not talking about abortion, folks. We’re talking about the life of a child that is born.

Of course Planned Parenthood Director Leana Wen threw in her two cents:

Untitled

Her claims are amusing in light of a report Sen. Tom Cotton points to, which shows at that in Florida alone, at least 11 babies were born alive during abortions in 2017.

It’s so telling that Democrats are more than willing to loudly voice their love and concern for children when it helps advance the party’s agenda, but if the existence of little ones presents an obstacle to their goals, then they are more than happy to literally, and figuratively, abandon them in their time of need. So expendable are these little souls…

–Dana


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