Restricting abortion infringes on 'religious freedom,' says Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand

Pro-life bills to ensure care for babies who survive abortions and to ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy failed in the Senate this week, and Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.) said they represented an attack on religious freedom, according to LifeSite News.

Despite earning support from a majority of the Senate, the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act and the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act failed to get the required 60 votes necessary to advance. Gillibrand, a former presidential candidate with a 100% approval rating from Planned Parenthood, celebrated the results.

"This is part of President Trump and Mitch McConnell's all-out assault on women," Gillibrand told MSNBC. "They're trying to harm women. They're trying to take away their civil rights, their human rights, their ability to make the most important, intimate decisions of their lives. They're taking away their religious freedom. They're taking away their moral freedom.

"These two measures that we're voting on literally changes the landscape of how we treat a baby who was born, who cannot survive outside the womb and how those parents want to be able to have those final moments with their child," Gillibrand continued. "It is a horrible, horrible choice by Mitch McConnell to force these votes, and we've voted on these measures before and they've lost. I think this is just a political ploy to satisfy those who are attending the CPAC conference."

The Born-Alive act simply requires that an infant born after failed abortion attempts be considered a "legal person" with the "same claim to the protection of the law that would arise for any newborn," and that health care practitioners "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."

The Pain-Capable act would ban most abortions after 20 weeks, the age at which it is believed the unborn child can feel pain. The bill contained exceptions for rape, incest, or to protect the life of the mother.