Heading into the 2016 legislative season, the pro-life organization Americans United for Life has released the details of its Infants’ Protection Project, which proposes a number of new laws seeking to protect the unborn.
"For more than 40 years, AUL has worked to protect unborn children and their mothers with constitutionally sound model legislation," President and CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest
said in a statement.
"The Infants' Protection Project builds on AUL's uniquely effective mother-child strategy that considers both victims of a greedy abortion industry that places profits over people."
Gathered below are eight pieces of legislation the package proposes lawmakers take up in the New Year.
1. Unborn Infants Dignity Act — After the Center for Medical Progress unveiled shocking undercover video footage of Planned Parenthood in 2015, the fate of aborted fetal tissue became a national topic of conversation. The Unborn Infants Dignity Act seeks to ensure that the bodies of the aborted are not "exploited for scientific or pecuniary gain," AUL
explained on its website. "Tragically, many states do not ensure that miscarried, stillborn, or aborted infants are treated with dignity, such as receiving proper burials. Many states also fail to require fetal death reporting and the issuance of fetal death certificates for unborn infants lost early in pregnancy, and do not offer their grieving parents Certificates of Birth Resulting in Stillbirth or similar legal documents. The Unborn Infants Dignity Act remedies these deficiencies."
2. Born-Alive Infant Protection Act — This legislation builds on the Federal Born-Alive Infants Protection Act of the early 2000s, legislation that received a 98-0 vote in the U.S. Senate — including from Hillary Clinton. The legislation seeks to assist states considering requirements that children who survive attempted abortions be given medically appropriate care and treatment.
3. Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act — "To best ensure the eradication of partial-birth abortion, each state must pass its own ban,"
wrote AUL's vice president of legal affairs, Denise M. Burke. This proposed legislation is modeled after the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, which was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in Gonzales v. Carhart.
4. "Missouri Preamble" — This legislation provides a framework for defining and protecting personhood.
According to AUL, it’s a "unique measure providing the fullest legal protection to unborn children (given the U.S. Supreme Court's abortion jurisprudence) and requiring that state laws be interpreted to provide such protection to the unborn."
5. Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act — "In 2012, the organization Live Action sent investigators into Planned Parenthood clinics around the country and revealed that the abortion giant was willing to perform sex-selection abortions – even later-term (sex-selection) abortions when the risks to maternal health are markedly higher,"
the AUL explained. The Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act would prohibits sex-selection abortions and abortions performed for genetic abnormalities including Down syndrome.
6. Women's Health Defense Act — A legislative component of AUL's Women's Protection Project, this proposed legislation limits abortions at five months of pregnancy (20 weeks gestation) based on the pain experienced by unborn children and the substantial maternal health risks of such abortions.
7. Perinatal Hospice Information Act — "Prenatal screening and diagnostic methods have improved significantly over the last few decades. As a result, increasingly more fetal conditions are being detected at an early stage in pregnancy. Unfortunately, when a life-limiting anomaly is diagnosed, most couples opt to terminate the pregnancy, while approximately 20 percent decide to continue pregnancy,"
wrote the AUL. The Perinatal Hospice Information Act seeks to require the dissemination of information about perinatal hospice and other supportive, life-affirming options for families facing lethal fetal anomalies.
8. Unborn Wrongful Death Act — "Many states have determined that a wrongful death (civil) claim can be pursued in cases where an unborn child is killed as a result of a third party’s criminal action, negligence, malpractice, or production or distribution of an unsafe product,"
wrote the AUL. "A minority of the states have either not addressed this issue or have decided that only persons who die after being born can be the subject of a wrongful death claim. Moreover, the majority of states that permit a wrongful death cause of action for an unborn child do not protect all unborn children equally. To remedy both the lack of wrongful death laws in some states and the lack of comprehensive protection provided by most existing state laws, AUL has drafted the Unborn Wrongful Death Act. This model language permits a wrongful death claim in the death of an unborn child at any stage of development or gestation."
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