Democrats have generally argued that legislation is redundant as the Born Alive Infant Protection Act of 2002 already guarantees care for babies who survive abortions. That particular bill clarified that born alive children had the same rights as others, but didn't directly apply penalties in the statute itself. In September, President Trump signed an executive order applying EMTALA, which mandates emergency medical care, as benchmarks for whether federally-funded programs are in compliance. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reported that between 2003 and 2014, 143 infants were born alive during abortion attempts. Ralph Northam indicated in 2019 that doctors should be able to refuse life-saving care to infants who survive abortions.

Source: Fox News December 11, 2020 03:33 UTC