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Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, November 13, 2018 Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post via Getty Images

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VIRGINIA, January 30, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – Virginia’s Governor Ralph Northam suggested in comments this morning that a proposed bill allowing abortion up until the moment of birth would also allow doctors to refuse to resuscitate an infant born alive after a failed abortion “if that’s what the mother and the family desire.”

“This is pure infanticide,” wrote Ben Shapiro in Daily Wire about Northam's comments. 

Northam, a former pediatric neurologist, was responding to a question on WTOP’s Ask The Governor about the controversy sparked yesterday during a statehouse hearing about the proposed bill. Del. Kathy Tran had defended the bill as allowing abortion for a woman who was already in the process of giving birth. 

Northam called the controversy “overblown.”

He went on to explain what would happen in a situation of a woman wanting an abortion who was already in labor. 

“So in this particular example, if the mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen: The infant would be delivered; the infant would be kept comfortable; the infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desire, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother,” he said. 

Shapiro called Northam's proposal “pure evil.”

“Northam is specifically talking about delivering an infant alive and then asking the mother whether the infant should live or not. This is not an argument about the morning-after pill. It’s not an argument over whether a fetus feels pain. This is a statement that a fully-formed infant, born alive, ought to be murdered if the mother says the infant ought to be murdered,” he wrote. 

In an exchange yesterday during a subcommittee hearing about the bill, the bill’s chief proponent admitted that the measure would permit aborting babies even as a mother had begun dilating.    

When asked, “How late in the third trimester could a physician perform an abortion?” delegate Kathy Tran, a Democrat from Northern Virginia replied, “through the third trimester,” adding: ” The third trimester goes all the way up to forty weeks.”

“Where it’s obvious a woman is about to give birth?” asked the chairman of the subcommittee, Delegate Todd Gilbert. Even when “she has physical signs that she is about to give birth?” added Gilbert.  “She’s dilating?”  

“My bill would allow that, yes,” responded Tran.

Known as the Repeal Act, Virginia House Bill 2491 would eliminate current restrictions on late term abortions.

“Following on the heels of New York’s radical expansion of abortion on demand, Delegate Tran’s bill reveals with alarming clarity what the modern Democratic Party stands for and their agenda for our nation – abortion on demand, up until the moment of delivery and even beyond,” said Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser in a statement issued this morning. 

“This position is irreconcilable with the beliefs, values, and desires of the overwhelming majority of Americans,” she added.