skip to Main Content

Baldwin-Sponsored Radical Bill Would Invalidate Law that Convicted Kermit Gosnell

  • Blog

This month, Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) was proud to announce her sponsorship for legislation that would nullify and negate hundreds of state and federal limitations on abortion – including legislation in Pennsylvania that was used to convict infamous murderer and abortionist Kermit Gosnell.

Baldwin said in a press statement on November 13:

“I’m proud to introduce the Women’s Health Protection Act because every American woman deserves the freedom to exercise her constitutional rights by making personal health decisions for herself and her family with a trusted doctor, and without political interference.

Our bill makes it clear that states can no longer enact laws that unduly limit access to reproductive health services and do nothing to further women’s health or safety.

But as the Weekly Standard noted, this legislation is quite radical in it’s scope and breadth to undermine and overturn state limitations on abortion – many which came in direct response to the grisly Gosnell trial.

The Weekly Standard reports:

In fact, the Democrats’ new abortion bill is so radical it would lead to the invalidation of the Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act–a law, which has been on the books since 1989, that was used to convict Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell earlier this year. In addition to being convicted on three counts of murder for killing infants after they had been born, Gosnell was convicted under the Abortion Control Act for successfully killing 21 infants in utero past Pennsylvania’s gestational limit on abortion (a limit that’s just two weeks later in pregnancy than the limit established recently by Texas).

Douglas Johnson of the National Right to Life Committee told THE WEEKLY STANDARD in an email that Blumenthal’s bill “would invalidate nearly every provision of the Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act, including the prohibition on performing abortion after 24 weeks except in acute medical circumstances, which was used to prosecute Gosnell. Abortion until birth would be explicitly protected, as long as a single physician asserts that it would protect ‘health,’ including emotional health.”

According to National Right to Life, this legislation would also nullify many state laws that ban abortions after 20 weeks, choosing a nebulous standard of “viability” instead.

The bill explicitly prohibits any ban on abortion before “viability” (the point at which the child can survive independently of the mother), and dictates that only “the treating health care professional” (the abortionist) may determine whether “viability” exists in any given case. This provision, among others, would invalidate the laws enacted by 10 states since 2010, which declare that unborn children are capable of experiencing pain at least by 20 weeks fetal age, and that generally prohibit abortion after that point.

The bill would also require every state to allow abortion even after viability if “the treating physician” (the abortionist) asserts that it will avoid “risk” to the “health” of the pregnant woman. At a November 13 press conference, in response to a question from a reporter for The Weekly Standard, Blumenthal acknowledged that “health” includes a doctor’s personal assessment of psychological health.

A June 2013 NBC/Wall Street Journal poll revealed that 44% would support a ban on abortion after 20 weeks in their state. And just 28% say abortion should be legal under any and all circumstances.
Right Wisconsin

Back To Top