TALLAHASSEE, FL, March 30, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – If a child is born alive following a botched abortion, should the abortionist be required to try to save its life? According to a Planned Parenthood lobbyist, the child's right to life after birth should also be a matter of choice.
Alisa Lapolt Snow, the lobbyist representing the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates, testified before the Florida House this week to oppose a law requiring abortionists to provide care for babies born alive during botched abortions in the most stark terms possible.
Rep. Jim Boyd, a member of the Civil Justice Subcommittee, gave ample warning that Planned Parenthood's position sounded callous and inhuman.
“It's just really hard for me to even ask you this question, because I'm almost in disbelief,” he said. “If a baby is born on a table as a result of a botched abortion, what would Planned Parenthood want to have happen to that child that is struggling for life?”
“We believe that any decision that’s made should be left up to the woman, her family, and the physician,” Snow replied.
Rep. Daniel Davis later asked, “What happens in a situation where a baby is alive, breathing on a table, moving. What do your physicians do at that point?”
Snow punted.
“I do not have that information,” she said. “I am not a physician, I am not an abortion provider, so I do not have that information.”
After a third representative pressed Snow replied, “That decision should be between the patient and the health care provider.”
Rep. Jose Oliva replied, “I think that at that point the patient would be the child struggling on a table. Wouldn't you agree?”
Only then did Snow seem to understand the weakness of her argument. “That's a very good question,” she said with a nervous smile. “I really don't know how to answer that.”
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Snow said her organization had “logistical issues” about remote offices ,where the nearest health care center is “45 minutes, an hour away.”
She added, “We don't know even how prevalent this situation is.”
However, in Canada – a nation with roughly 10 percent of America's population and abortion rate – 491 babies were left to die after failed abortions from 2000-2009.
The debate comes just one year after the publication of the article “After-birth abortion: Why should the baby live?” in the Journal of Medical Ethics.
Jordan Bloom of The American Conservative wrote, “Much of the legal reasoning surrounding abortion involves the understanding that a fetus is a potentiality rather than a person. None of that applies here.”
He added it might help distance Planned Parenthood from its history of supporting such unpopular programs as eugenics and population control “if their representatives today acknowledged the completely uncontroversial belief that killing newborns is never acceptable.”
The president might take similar advice. As an Illinois state senator, Barack Obama opposed a born-alive infant protection bill on numerous occasions.
“Hopefully this will open some eyes about the true nature of the Planned Parenthood that is behind all the slick marketing campaigns,” said Lila Rose of Live Action.
Others believed this was all-too-predictable. Marty Duren gave “kudos to Planned Parenthood for their logical consistency in defending infanticide.”
“Those who support the right of children to be born have long argued that if life is not from conception (or at the very, very least implantation) assignment of 'living' is arbitrary,” he said. “If a child can be killed in the womb, there are no convincing arguments, either logical or a moral, as to why a child cannot be killed on the table, abandoned in the trash, burned alive in an incinerator or poisoned in the nursery.”
Dr. Wesley J. Smith, an ethicist and philosopher, had seen this coming long in advance. “I don’t know why anyone is surprised about the [Planned Parenthood] endorsement,” he wrote. “It is just another indication that infanticide continues its slow movement toward respectability.”
He asked, “If a baby born during a botched abortion can be killed, why not also an unwanted baby born in the usual manner?”