North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper has vetoed legislation that would have clarified that babies born alive after botched abortions are to receive medical care that is similar to what other premature babies would receive.
“Laws already protect newborn babies, and this bill is an unnecessary interference between doctors and their patients,” Cooper, a Democrat, said in a statement. “This needless legislation would criminalize doctors and other healthcare providers for a practice that simply does not exist.”
The bill, the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, would have resulted in doctors who flout the law facing prison time, fines, and civil damages. It’s not clear how many attempted abortions end instead in live births, though adults who have said they have survived abortions have lobbied for the measures at the state and federal level. Supporters of such bills say that babies are otherwise left to die.
Abortion rights groups and Democrats argue that difficult medical decisions should be between families and their doctors, including when fetuses have severe medical conditions that would either cause them not to survive birth or result in short, painful lives. They have said that passing measures similar to the one in North Carolina is unnecessary because the U.S. already has laws against infanticide.
Anti-abortion organizations have been pressing for state and federal lawmakers to consider bills similar to the one in North Carolina as liberal states look to enshrine abortion rights and loosen restrictions on later abortions, given that the Supreme Court now tilts more conservative.
Organizations devoted to ending abortion see such measures as a winning issue for their cause as they head into the 2020 elections, and Cooper is up for re-election next year.
“Gov. Cooper is radically out of step with North Carolinians and his record will be a liability with voters in 2020,” Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the anti-abortion Susan B. Anthony List, said in a statement.
A similar measure failed in the U.S. Senate in February following opposition from Democrats. In the Democrat-controlled House, Republican leaders have launched a discharge petition that they hope will be signed by enough lawmakers to force a floor vote.
