Babies “born alive” during abortion | An imposing text advances in the American Congress

(Washington) Republicans in the US House of Representatives on Thursday adopted a bill requiring care for babies “born alive” during an abortion, a text that Democrats reject by asserting that such provisions already exist in law.

The text, which must now be studied by the Senate, would require healthcare personnel to provide babies “born alive” after a voluntary or medical termination of pregnancy with the “same degree of professional competence, care, and assiduity” as to any other newborn.

Offending doctors would face fines and up to five years in prison.

Democrats regularly reject similar bills from the American right, considering them redundant compared to current law. American law already prohibits healthcare workers from killing or neglecting a newborn.

“The goal of this text is to target and intimidate” doctors who perform abortions, accused Democratic Senator Dick Durbin.

In cases where the baby has no chance of surviving due to medical problems, some parents prefer to spend the few minutes they have holding their child rather than having them subjected to “futile” care, he said. he argues. Such a text would send to prison doctors who respect the parents’ choice, insisted Senator Durbin.

Despite the failure of a similar text in the Senate on Wednesday, Republicans want to see Democrats vote publicly against a measure that claims to combat “infanticide”.

“Tragically, House Democrats opposed the bill, voted in favor of infanticide, and chose to deny medical care to crying newborns on operating tables, fighting to live.” , declared the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson.

Donald Trump prides himself on having, through his appointments of three conservative judges to the Supreme Court during his first term, 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 surgery, or have strictly regulated it.

Some associations are worried about the prospect of new attacks on abortion rights with the Republican’s return to the White House. According to them, access to the abortion pill is in the sights of the conservative camp.

The vast majority of abortions in the United States are performed before the fetus is viable: less than 1.3% are performed after 21 weeks of pregnancy, according to the main federal health agency in the United States, the CDC.