HHS works to prevent live-birth abortions
- Apr 29, 2005 -
The Department of Health and Human Services apparently is getting serious about preventing live-birth abortions.
New HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt announced April 22 the department has acted to strengthen compliance with the Born-alive Infants Protection Act, a 2002 law that provides legal protection to fully delivered babies, even when they are intended to be aborted.
The law clarifies a newborn child fully outside his mother’s womb is a person to be protected under federal law. This includes every human infant “born alive at any state of development,” according to the law.
The measure especially targeted an abortion method in which newborns who survive are allowed to die. Nurses had testified before a congressional committee that the procedure, known as live-birth abortion, was used at Christ Hospital in Chicago. In the method, delivery is induced, and the baby is left unattended to die if he survives.
In a written statement, Leavitt said he would “vigorously uphold” the principle in the law that all infants who are born alive “are entitled to the full protection of the law.”
“We took the first of these educational steps today by notifying relevant entities that we aggressively enforce federal laws that protect born-alive infants,” Leavitt said. HHS “issued clear guidance that withholding medical care from an infant born alive” may be considered a violation of federal law and the conditions for participating in Medicare, he said.