Last week our hearts were broken as we found that our Governor vetoed Senate File 97, the Born Alive bill that would have provided more legal protection for babies born alive after a failed abortion attempt.
While reading through the reasons for the veto, I could see that the Governor had missed the central message of the bill.
The Born Alive legislation addressed a simple truth that born alive babies have the same right to medical care as any other infant born alive. 76% of Americans agree that a born alive baby should be protected in this way.
Sadly, the last 47 years since Roe vs. Wade have marked the deadliest era in human history for healthy infants in the womb. When the debate over abortion was first starting out, the American public was told horrific stories about the lengths to which some would go to have an abortion and that it was necessary to make abortions “safe, legal, and rare”. While many pro-abortion activists claimed they wanted abortions to be “safe, legal, and rare” they worked behind the scenes to fight for the right to abort children all the way up to birth and even, infamously, to partial-birth of the child.
Today, the abortion industry has gone to great lengths to hide potentially hundreds of babies who have been left to die after failed abortion attempts, with no regard to that child’s comfort and certainly without medical care. This is called infanticide.
Senate File 97 would have ensured that a born alive infant would be given medically appropriate care and not be abandoned at the moment of birth by adults in the room.
Opponents of the bill tried to paint the picture that this bill would create a scenario where a physician would have to endlessly resuscitate the life of a desperately sick child, who is wanted by the parents, in an inhumane manner. Nothing could have been further from the truth.
Senate File 97 wasn’t about forcing the survival of a child in excruciating pain endlessly. It was about preventing the “do nothing” approach reported by physicians, nurses and/or healthcare facilities across the nation when an unwanted child is “accidentally” born alive after a failed abortion. It is the unwanted child, completely defenseless, who has not a single advocate in the room to protect their life. Senate File 97 would have stood as a silent but strong guardian over this infant requiring that medical professionals carry out their ethical and medical duty to provide medical care (if appropriate) or genuine comfort care for this newborn. The physician would still have the ability to choose “what appropriate and reasonable steps” should be taken but it also made sure that the next step can’t be to do nothing.
Family Policy Alliance of Wyoming’s mission is and will always be to defend the lives of the most vulnerable among us. We will continue to advance citizenship where Life is honored, Religious Freedom Flourishes, Families thrive, and God is honored.
Thank you to every State Legislator and the numerous people from across Wyoming who worked tirelessly on this legislation. This veto has only showed us even more the need for us to stand alongside and partner with elected officials that also choose to defend the lives of the most vulnerable. Thank you for standing with us!
For life,
Nathan Winters
Executive Director
