The Republicans in the American House of Representatives adopted a bill on Thursday imposing care on “born alive” babies during an abortion. The text, which must now be studied by the Senate, would require the nursing staff to provide babies “born alive” after a voluntary or medical interruption of pregnancy the “same degree of professional competence, care, and attendance” as to any other newborn. Off -market doctors would have fines up to five years in prison.
A similar initiative – to “save viable babies outside the uterus” – had been proposed in Switzerland. From the ranks of the UDC, the members of the committee had not managed to bring together the 100,000 signatures required. Some detractors had denounced the use of private companies to harvest signatures or the use of fallacious, even downright false arguments.
Already existing provisions, according to the Democrats
American Democrats regularly reject similar bills of the American right, considering them redundant compared to the current law. US law already prohibits nursing staff from killing or neglecting a newborn baby.
“The aim of this text is to target and intimidate” Doctors who practice abortions, accused the Democratic Senator Dick Durbin.
In cases where the baby has no chance of surviving due to medical problems, some parents prefer to devote the few minutes they have to hold their child rather than seeing him subject to “futile” care, he It argues. Such a text would send doctors in prison who would respect the choice of parents, hammered Senator Durbin.
-Despite the failure of a text similar to the Senate on Wednesday, the Republicans wish to see the Democrats voting publicly against a measure which prides themselves on fighting “infanticides”. “Tragicly, the Democrats in the Chamber opposed the text, voted in favor of infanticides, and have chosen to refuse medical care to crying newborns on the operating tables, fighting to live” said Republican President of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson.
Access to the abortive pill in the preservative’s viewfinder
Donald Trump prides himself on having, by his appointments of three conservative judges to the Supreme Court during his first mandate, allowed the cancellation in June 2022 of the Federal Guarantee of the right to abortion. Since then, around twenty states have banned abortion, whether carried out by medication or surgical, or have strictly framed it.
Some associations are concerned about the prospect of new attacks against the right to abortion with the return of the Republican to the White House. According to them, access to the abortive pill is in the viewfinder of the conservative camp.
The vast majority of abortions in the United States are carried out before the viability of the fetus: less than 1.3% are made after 21 weeks of pregnancy, according to the main federal health agency in the United States, CDC.
