Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. MORRISON. Mr. Speaker, today I rise not only as the Congresswoman from Minnesota's Third District but as an OB/GYN who has had the honor and privilege of caring for patients for more than 20 years.

As I have said many times throughout those years, being an obstetrician is the greatest job in the world. Being present and helping people during one of the most joyful moments of their lives is an incredible privilege. It is also a serious responsibility.

On most days it is the best job in the world, but sometimes it can be absolutely tragic and heartbreaking. Sometimes medical complications can prevent a patient's dreams of building her family from coming true. The moment when a patient and her family learn about a lethal fetal medical condition that is incompatible with life is devastating. The pain and the grief in that moment is unfathomable. You can never unhear the mother's cries of despair.

Meeting each patient where they are and making a care plan that meets their needs is essential. Knowing that their baby will not survive, some want to plan a delivery that enables them to meet and hold and care for their baby for the precious little time they have together, the time and the space to say good-bye.

This shameful legislation would insert the government into this tragic situation and deny families the care they want for their baby. Instead of allowing parents to hold their dying baby, this bill would require doctors to forcibly take the dying baby from their parents and, even though there is no chance of survival, place the baby directly on a medical table under bright lights and perform interventions that will not work.

Sometimes it is chest compressions, intubation, when a breathing tube is placed in the baby's trachea, and IV lines. If those measures were not taken, the doctor could be charged with murder.

This bill is cruel. It singles out patients who are facing the worst days of their lives. This bill does not solve a problem. Doctors are already both honored and obligated to provide appropriate care for their patients. It is illegal to kill a newborn infant in all 50 States.

This bill is designed to confuse, to frighten, and to misinform people and criminalize medical providers. It would inflict further and unnecessary tragedy and trauma on patients and their families. We should do everything we can to support pregnant women, mothers, families, and their care providers, not attack them.

Mr. Speaker, I stand before you as an obstetrician on behalf of patients and providers across the country, who should never be subjected to this cruel and harmful mandate. I implore my colleagues to reject this legislation.

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