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Governor Ralph Northam of Virginia.

RICHMOND, April 9, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam recently signed into law bipartisan legislation toughening the state’s protection of animals against potential abusers, inviting a new wave of critiques for the embattled Democrat’s inhumane view of babies born alive after a failed abortion. 

SB 1604, named Tommie’s Law after a pit bull that died after being set on fire earlier this year, provides that anyone who “tortures, willfully inflicts inhumane injury or pain,” or “cruelly and unnecessarily beats, maims or mutilates any dog or cat” has committed a felony punishable by up to five years in jail and a fine of up to $2,500. Previously, such acts were only felonies if the animal died from its injuries.

The legislation won unanimous support from both chambers of the state legislature and was signed into law last week, ABC News reports. “This bill allows our officers to prosecute cruelty regardless of lifesaving medical interventions,” said Christie Chipps Peters, director of Richmond Animal Care and Control. “We are grateful to everyone that made this change a reality.”

American Greatness writer Debra Heine notes that in 2017, Virginia animal welfare PAC Humane Dominion endorsed Northam as “the humane leader Virginia’s animals need.”

But while few if any will find Tommie’s Law itself objectionable, Northam and Virginia Democrats’ enthusiasm for protecting animals from violence stands in stark contrast to their support for killing preborn babies moments before birth and leaving newborns to die after failed abortions.

In late January, video went viral from a hearing in which Republican Del. Todd Gilbert grilled Democrat Del. Kathy Tran on her bill to repeal regulations on late-term abortions. He asked if her bill would allow an abortion as late as when a mother “has physical signs that she is about to give birth.” Tran answered that “I don't think we have a limit in the bill […] my bill would allow that, yes.”

The bill was soon tabled, but the ensuing controversy led to Northam defending the bill on the grounds that in cases of “severe deformities” or a “nonviable” baby, he said, a born-alive infant would be “delivered,” “kept comfortable,” but after that the child would “be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.”

The Daily Wire's Ben Shapiro said Northam's comments amounted to defense for “pure infanticide.”

Northam later said he had no regrets about his words.

Northam’s remarks, along with the introduction of radical pro-abortion bills in states like New York, set off a national firestorm including federal anti-infanticide legislation, large-scale pro-life protests and prayer gatherings, and a sudden 10-point spike in pro-life public opinion in February.

“If we’re really at the point where our country can’t agree that killing babies who have been born is always wrong,” PowerLine’s Paul Mirengoff lamented, “then it’s not easy to see how we remain one society, no matter how strongly we agree that cruelty to animals is wrong.”