Minnesota Democrats have introduced a bill that would repeal several of the state’s “restrictions” on abortion, including a statute that protects infants who survive abortions.
The “Born Alive Infants Protection Act” was passed by the Minnesota Legislature in 2015. It states that abortion survivors should be fully recognized as human persons and provided with medical care to preserve their lives.
Rep. Tina Liebling, DFL-Rochester, wants to repeal these protections because they are an “insult” to doctors, she said during a House Health Committee meeting Thursday.
Her bill would also repeal restrictions on the use of public funds for abortion and a requirement that aborted babies be “disposed” of in a “dignified and sanitary” manner.
Rep. Anne Neu Brindley, R-North Branch, attempted to preserve the Born Alive Infants Protection Act, but her amendment to Liebling’s bill was rejected.
“It is very clearly a person who is alive. It is absolutely shocking to me that we are having this discussion. It was not enough to support the most radical abortion policy in the world. Now we are saying that even if a baby is born alive, that that child also should not live, that that child also has no rights,” Neu Brindley said.
“This repealer literally allows infanticide,” she added. “It is abhorrent that we are sitting here right now having this conversation … I cannot believe the lack of humanity that is on the table today.”
Liebling responded by condemning Neu Brindley’s “personal, inflammatory, politically-motivated rhetoric.”
“This law that we are repealing in this bill is first of all based on a lie about how abortion works. This is not what happens in abortion, but it is built around this insulting idea that medical professionals are unethical and they need politicians … standing over their shoulder in the room where they’re treating their patient to make sure that they behave appropriately,” Liebling said.
“To say that there are no protections in Minnesota law for infants who are alive is absolutely untrue and inflammatory,” she continued. “What if we had a law that said legislators must not beat their spouses?”
According to the Minnesota Department of Health, there were five infants who survived abortions in 2021.
Neu Brindley’s amendment to preserve protections for born-alive infants was rejected in an 8-11 vote by the DFL-controlled committee.
Democrats have also rejected bans on partial-birth abortions and late-term abortions this legislative session. They are moving a bill through the Minnesota Legislature that would guarantee a woman’s “fundamental right” to abort her baby for any reason up to the moment of birth.