Don’t be surprised by Dem Gov. Northam’s abhorrent abortion position

“The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.”

Those words from Virginia Democrat Gov. Ralph Northam in defense of an extreme state abortion bill kicked off a national firestorm among pro-lifers, as well as those generally disgusted by the idea of killing a viable human infant in the name of “reproductive choice.”

Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill responded by calling what Northam described by its proper name: Infanticide.

"In just a few years pro-abortion zealots went from ‘safe, legal, and rare’ to ‘keep the newborns comfortable while the doctor debates infanticide,” said Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., in response. "I don’t care what party you’re from - if you can’t say that it’s wrong to leave babies to die after birth, get the hell out of public office.”

“I never thought I would see the day America had government officials who openly support legal infanticide,” tweeted Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.

But of course, the major networks’ evening broadcasts made no mention of it whatsoever. In other news, water is wet.

Later that day, one of the bill’s Democratic cosponsors withdrew her support, saying that she only attached her name to the measure because she wasn’t aware of just how extreme it really was. And, make no mistake, it’s quite extreme.

But anyone who found the remarks genuinely surprising should take a hard look at how Northam’s fellow Democrats have treated abortion survivors in recent years. People do survive abortion attempts, and pro-life lawmakers have introduced bills to protect abortion survivors in the last few sessions of Congress. But most Democrats vote against them.

Last session, H.R. 4712, the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, came up for a vote in the House of Representatives. It was a relatively short and simple measure to “prohibit a health care practitioner from failing to exercise the proper degree of care in the case of a child who survives an abortion or attempted abortion.”

I.E., it would prohibit that “discussion” that Northam referred to on the radio from leading to the child being killed or left to die.

The bill passed by a vote of 241 to 183. All 183 “nay” votes came from House Democrats, and only six Democrats voted in favor of it.

A Heritage Foundation policy brief in favor of the bill explained that it would have augmented a law passed and signed in 2002: “However, as the disturbing case of Kermit Gosnell has shown, babies continue to be born alive and then killed after attempted abortions or are purposely delivered alive and left to die. The Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act augments the 2002 law by providing for criminal consequences for health care providers who violate the law and requires that proper medical care be given by the health care practitioner present if an infant is born alive.”

In September 2015, the Obama administration issued a formal policy statement opposing an earlier iteration of the bill, saying that heightened legal protections for abortion survivors “would likely have a chilling effect, reducing access to care”; basically, hypothetical concerns about abortion access were more important to the Obama White House than protection for infants outside the womb.

Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., now the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, defended his opposition to the measure on the House floor, making the nonsense “argument” that the requirement to admit abortion survivors to a hospital somehow “puts children’s lives and health at risk.” He also said that the implication that abortionists “cannot be trusted to take adequate measures to save a living baby’s life, is insulting and untrue.”

Just to put things in further perspective here, Nadler said that just before the vote, on January 19, 2018; Northam’s infanticide comments are 376 days later.

Given where Northam's party members have fallen on the born-alive issue, given that the 2016 Democratic presidential candidate admitted that she “did not think” that there should be any restrictions on late-term abortion after Roe v. Wade, and given that the wider abortion activist cadre is quickly replacing the old mantra of "safe, legal, and rare" with "on demand and without apology," should anybody be that surprised by what Northam said?

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