07-29-2000

ABORTION: `Born-Alive' Legislation Renews Abortion Fight

A minor skirmish in the endless abortion wars was waged in the House
Judiciary Committee on July 26, and the two sides fought to a
draw.


The committee approved, 22-1, the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act (H.R.
4292), which, in the end, appeared to reiterate and underscore existing
law that has long outlawed allowing ailing newborns-whether premature or
not-to die for lack of treatment.


Rep. Charles Canady, R-Fla., a veteran abortion foe, said he authored the
legislation to "reassert and codify the long-standing law" in
light of a recent Supreme Court decision that struck down Nebraska's ban
on a late-term abortion procedure (dilation and extraction), called
"partial-birth" abortion by its foes.


"If a child born alive after a botched abortion does not receive the
protection of the law," Canady asked, "what is to prevent an
abortionist from simply delivering a child and then killing
it?"


Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., noted that existing law prohibits such
behavior, but he and most other committee members eventually voted for
Canady's bill anyway because it apparently didn't affect that law.
"As far as I can tell, this bill does nothing except restate current
law," Nadler said. "It is unnecessary if the purpose is to
protect against allowing infants to die or to protect against
infanticide."


The Canady bill defines born alive as meaning the "complete expulsion
or extraction from its mother" of "a member of the species homo
sapiens ... who, after such expulsion or extraction, breathes or has a
beating heart, pulsation of the umbilical cord, or definite movement of
voluntary muscles, regardless of whether the umbilical cord has been cut,
and regardless of whether the expulsion or extraction occurs as a result
of natural or induced labor, caesarian section, or induced
abortion."


Several committee members wondered about the motive behind Canady's bill.
Nadler surmised that the reason for introducing it was rooted in the
mutual "paranoia" lawmakers on both sides of the issue have
about any initiative by the other side.


Rep. Melvin Watt, D-N.C., cast the lone vote against the bill, complaining
that no one had had time to figure out how thousands of federal laws and
regulations-criminal as well as civil and commercial-might be affected by
Canady's definitions.


"What impact on the child tax credit?" Watt asked. "On
determining the survivor benefit on life insurance? On a veteran's benefit
for a child that was born?"


Chairman Henry J. Hyde, R-Ill., insisted that the "bill is not all
that complicated." He argued that the word person, for instance,
"has vested with it considerations of due process and equal
protection of the law. That's all. Very simple-either you're for it or
you're not."


David Hess

National Journal