Congress is currently considering legislation to ban live-birth abortion. The bill is called the "Born Alive Infant Protection Act of 2000." Live-birth abortion is a procedure which induces premature labor through the use of drugs. According to numerous investigations, babies are sometimes born alive, but left to die without any medical assistance or intervention. Some of these babies have lived for as long as two and a half hours before dying.
As you might imagine, some of the testimony for this bill has been most unpleasant. Jill Stanek told of her experiences as a registered nurse at Christ Hospital in the Chicagoland area. The hospital uses a procedure known as "induced labor abortion" which legislators are now starting to call "live-birth abortion." A medication is used to induce delivery of a premature baby who is allowed to die. The baby receives no medical assessments or care. It is only given what the hospital calls "comfort care" which usually entails keeping the baby warm in a blanket until the baby dies.
She tells the story of one night when a Down's Syndrome baby was born alive and taken to the hospital's Soiled Utility Room. She could not bear to see the baby left alone, so she cradled and rocked the baby for the 45 minutes that he lived. She estimated that he was 21-22 weeks old and weighed about ½ pound and was 10 inches long. After he died, she folded his arms across his chest and took him to the hospital morgue.
It's amazing to me that we even have to pass a law to say that live-birth abortion is wrong. But the Supreme Court recently ruled that even partial-birth abortion cannot be outlawed. So I guess that shows just how far we are sliding down the slippery slope of abortion.
I'm Kerby Anderson of Probe Ministries, and that's my opinion.