[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 34 (Monday, February 25, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Page S1427]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                 S. 311

  Mr. MORAN. Mr. President, I am here to take the opportunity to join 
my colleagues to speak in support of the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors 
Protection Act. I thank Senator Sasse for his continued leadership on 
this issue. I supported the bill when Senator Sasse introduced it last 
Congress, and I was glad to see Senator McConnell, our leader, bring 
this bill to the floor for a vote.
  I am astonished--astonished--that we are debating whether it is 
appropriate to leave born children to die. Today, now, in the year of 
2019, how can this be? Science demonstrates that human life begins at 
conception, and our understanding of neonatal development is increasing 
every day.
  I am a member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, 
Health and Human Services. The National Institutes of Health is one of 
my top priorities for funding. At the NIH, the National Institute of 
Child Health and Human Development has advanced our knowledge of 
pregnancy and development in the womb. Under this Institute, the 
Neonatal Research Network has pioneered research that has led to 
techniques that saved the lives of children in their earliest stages, 
when these children are at their most vulnerable.
  The Congressional Budget Office estimates that more than 10,000 
babies are aborted each year after 20 weeks of conception, when 
science--science--tells us that an unborn child can feel pain inside 
the womb. That number will increase as a result of recent State-level 
efforts to end virtually any restriction on abortion when a child could 
viably live outside the womb. These efforts are extreme and fall far 
beyond the mainstream of American opinion.
  This legislation does nothing to limit prenatal abortion. While we 
must address that issue--the root causes of abortion and the ways to 
curb this heartbreaking trend--that is not the issue at hand today in 
this legislation. The question before us is this: When a child survives 
an abortion and is born, does the U.S. Senate believe the child can 
still be eliminated, or should the baby be protected and given all 
possible care to survive? This act requires healthcare practitioners to 
``exercise the same degree of professional skill, care, and diligence 
to preserve the life and health of a child as a reasonably diligent and 
conscientious healthcare practitioner would render to any other child 
born alive at the same gestational age.'' Any negligence in this regard 
is subject to criminal and civil punishment, which at present does not 
exist.

  Should anyone think this is some made-up issue--despite the Virginia 
Governor's shocking comments revealing an openness to infanticide and 
New York's expansion of abortion well beyond the age of viability that 
makes born-alive abortion survivors more likely--we have concrete 
evidence that this grotesque act happens. Notorious abortion provider 
Kermit Gosnell is serving life in prison for these very acts.
  Closing our eyes to what is obscene does not make it any less real. 
That it is allegedly ``rare'' doesn't make it any less real or 
abhorrent. One child purposefully deprived of healthcare and allowed to 
die is one too many. It is infanticide, which brings us to the crux of 
this issue. We need to think carefully about the long-term impacts to 
the definition of ``healthcare'' if Congress refuses to act positively 
on this measure. Do the guardrails of neonatal health succumb to the 
belief that infants don't really count as one of us?
  Our society is not one of the ancient Romans or the Aztecs. We don't 
sacrifice our children to please an unknown god. In the progress of 
human history, principles of the enlightenment--also known as the Age 
of Reason--declared self-evident truths that all humans are created 
equal and endowed with the unalienable right to life. Although 
undoubtedly we have our flaws, these enlightenment principles enshrined 
in our founding documents remain true to who we are as a nation and who 
we are as human beings. We recoil when we hear of children who are 
harmed in any manner. Yet today we are faced with a reality where the 
ability to terminate an unborn child's life when it is viable outside 
of the womb is something that is not only tolerated but is passionately 
defended by the left.
  That is bad enough, but to see legislation ensuring that the medical 
care of born children gets blocked is incomprehensible. The immutable 
march of progress in human history has met a roadblock today in the 
U.S. Senate. The Age of Reason seems to have escaped us.
  Tonight, the Senate had an opportunity to send a message showing who 
we are as leaders and as a society as a whole--one that protects the 
weak and the voiceless instead of one that permits their destruction. I 
regret and I am saddened that the Senate failed this fundamental test.
  I am eager to do more to protect innocent life, including the unborn, 
but the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Act provided us an opportunity to 
affirm the most basic need for healthcare for a vulnerable child who 
has already beaten the odds to survive. Let's hope we have another 
opportunity to give these children the chance at life they so deserve.
  I thank you.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.