WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-LA), a doctor and member of the Senate health committee, responded today to Virginia Governor Ralph Northam’s defense of infanticide and Virginia Democrats’ legislation to make it legal to abort a completely healthy baby up until the moment of birth. Last night, a pro-abortion Democrat said it was a “mistake” for her to support the legislation, because what the bill’s sponsor said it would allow is classified as “partial birth infanticide” and “a crime.”
“‘First, do no harm’ is supposed to be the first rule of medicine, and clearly, clearly, Governor Northam didn’t get that memo,” Dr. Cassidy said on KEEL radio this morning. “They’re pretty radical, and they’re beholden to groups like Planned Parenthood, and will do their best to kind of answer Planned Parenthood’s agenda.”
The pro-choice movement “understand[s] they’re losing the argument based on science,” added Dr. Cassidy. “And so now they’re pushing back with, ‘oh, it’s not a baby, it’s a choice,’ and trying to dehumanize the child.”
Answering questions about her legislation (HB 2491) in Virginia, Delegate Kathy Tran (D) admitted there was no “limit in the bill” for when a baby could be aborted. Asked if that included when a woman is about to give birth and is dilating, Tran stated that her bill would still allow the baby to be killed at that point. Asked what type of mental health conditions could be cited under her bill to kill a fully viable baby, Tran said she didn’t know of any but that a doctor who did not have any specialized training in mental health could still carry out an abortion of a fully formed, fully viable baby at the last stages of pregnancy under her bill. All of Tran’s answers are documented on video.
22 other Democrats in the Virginia state legislature joined Tran in introducing the “abortion until birth” legislation: Dawn Adams, Hala Ayala, Jennifer Foy, Lee Carter, Wendy Gooditis, Elizabeth Guzman, Patrick Hope, Jay Jones, Kaye Kory, Paul Krizek, Mark Levine, Alfonso Lopez, Delores McQuinn, Sam Rasoul, David Reid, Debra Rodman, Marcus Simon, Cheryl Turpin, Roslyn Tyler, Schuyler VanValkenburg, Jennifer Boysko, and Jennifer McClellan.
Last night, Adams—a pro-abortion Democrat—said it was a “mistake” for her to support Tran’s legislation, because what Tran said her bill would allow is classified as “partial birth infanticide” and “a crime.”
Defending Tran’s infanticide legislation yesterday, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam (D) appeared to describe killing babies after they are born, saying the “infant would be delivered” and “kept comfortable” while a “discussion” is had about whether it will be killed.
Northam falsely claimed late stage abortions are “done in cases where there may be severe deformities. There may be a fetus that’s non-viable.” In fact, according to a 2013 study by the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute, “most women seeking later terminations are not doing so for reasons of fetal anomaly or life endangerment.” Regardless, the “legislation Northam backs does not limit late-term abortions to such circumstances,” noted National Review’s Ramesh Ponnuru.
Key excerpts of Cassidy’s comments on KEEL radio this morning are transcribed below.
HOST: What did you take from Governor Northam’s statement?
CASSIDY: The way he described that the child is born alive, and then after the child was born alive, okay, they tried to kill it as it was coming through the birth canal. Because it could be the moment before, before birth, that they would put the child to the side and then decide what to do with it. And if the family decided not to do, okay, not to resuscitate, they would allow the child to die. That means the child is being born alive. Now they’re trying to make the immediate time after delivery, when normally a momma and a father are exultant, part of the in-utero, in-the-womb continuum, and it is not. … I think it’s terrible that they would abort a child at 40, at 39-and-a-half weeks, when clearly the child could be born and to live, but then to have that continuum is also just awful.
HOST: Is there really a doctor in our country who would do this?
CASSIDY: Of course, look up the Netflix or the YouTube on [Kermit] Gosnell out of Philadelphia. … The right-to-life movement has been very effective at using science to show that when the child is in the womb sucking his thumb or sucking her thumb, that she actually is a person and she has an intellect, or not an intellect, but she has kind of the ability to respond to stimulus and parents bond with it. The pro-choice movement, Planned Parenthood, is trying to defuse that. They have billboards showing a fetus saying it’s a choice, because they understand they’re losing the argument based on science. And so now they’re pushing back with, ‘oh, it’s not a baby, it’s a choice,’ and trying to dehumanize the child.
HOST: What’s the upside of all this for Democrats who are proposing these outlandish bills?
CASSIDY: So the people that ran and got elected because voters, some voters were very upset about Donald Trump, and they wanted to have a protest vote. And they elected people who were far radical than previously elected in those districts, and they did it to protest Donald trump. Now, but the people they elected are far radical than the folks who previously represented those districts. And as opposed to the moderates, as some presented themselves to be, they’re pretty radical, and they’re beholden to groups like Planned Parenthood, and will do their best to kind of answer Planned Parenthood’s agenda.
HOST: As a physician yourself, when you see this statement made by Governor Northam yesterday, who by the way is a pediatric neurologist, doesn’t it make you want to throw up?
CASSIDY: Well, ‘first, do no harm’ is supposed to be the first rule of medicine, and clearly, clearly, Governor Northam didn’t get that memo. … Let’s be honest, society has decided that abortion in some means is something that society wants to accept. Now, we may think differently about it—I certainly do—but nonetheless society has decided that. And so we can either fuss about that, or we can begin to change culture, and I think that’s where a lot of energy needs to be placed. How do we do what the pro-life movement has done, use science to convey to people that that child in utero is actually a child …. We obviously have to keep at it.
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