Cornyn Votes for Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act

I spoke on the Senate floor yesterday about my vote in support of the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which failed when 44 Senators inexplicably voted against providing health care to infants who have already been born. Excerpts of my floor remarks are below, and video can be found here.

The Senate had an opportunity to go on record and to show our constituents that we supported the most vulnerable among us. The Born-Alive Survivors Protection Act would require doctors to treat a baby, once it is born, with ordinary medical assistance, something they would do under any other circumstances, even though this entailed surviving an abortion. If you ask the American people, they would say this is just common sense.

There are no federal laws requiring health care providers to care for these babies, just as they would any other infant in their care. And for some members of the opposing party, they're just fine with that.

We all know that a few weeks ago, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam made disturbing comments about how to care for – or, rather, how not to care for certain newborns.

The governor, a pediatrician, by the way, essentially advocated infanticide, killing a child that was born alive.

That is not health care. That's murder.

Yesterday 44 senators voted to allow that same person's life to be ended with impunity.

It's so shocking to me that 44 of our colleagues chose to vote against even proceeding to a debate and a vote on the matter.

While Republicans and Democrats disagree on a range of issues, this should not be one of them. If we have one shred of our humanity left, we ought to agree that protecting human life is essential. This should have been a simple vote for every single member of this body. And I can't tell you how disappointed I am that 44 of our colleagues decided to vote no. I was proud to vote yes on the bill, and yes to protecting these newborn babies, and yes to equal medical care for all infants, and yes to life.