Pro-Life Organization Launches 2016 Legislation Package to Protect Women and Babies

Pro-life organization Americans United for Life (AUL) announces a 2016 legislation package that follows up on its success with the multiple measures designed to protect babies and their mothers that have swept through the nation over the past several years.

The Infants’ Protection Project, says a press release, hopes to ensure that the humanity of unborn babies is legally protected and respected. The project represents AUL’s ongoing legislative work and will address some of the issues raised by the Center for Medical Progress videos that exposed Planned Parenthood’s apparent practice of selling the body parts of aborted babies.

“At this time of the year, when many pause from daily struggles to reflect on the unique contributions one baby made to the world, Americans United for Life is announcing its groundbreaking ‘Infants’ Protection Project’ to advance legal protections for the humanity of the unborn, as well as to address ongoing abortion industry abuses,” says AUL President and CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest.

She continues:

Already, AUL is receiving requests for a legislative package to address not only the barbaric trafficking in infant body parts, revealed by the Center for Medical Progress videos, but also the inhumanity of late-term abortion procedures which cause excruciating deaths for infants and carry substantial health risks for women. During this season, when many consider the beauty of a mother and her newborn son, Americans United for Life offers this package of legislation to care for both mother and child.

Yoest says the organization’s project is launching in advance of the 2016 legislative season and the edition of Defending Life, the pro-life playbook, which will be released nationwide in January as the nation commemorates the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in the United States.

“For more than 40 years, AUL has worked to protect unborn children and their mothers with constitutionally sound model legislation,” Yoest further explains. “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.”

The project contains the following package of proposed laws:

1. Unborn Infants Dignity Act – prohibits experimenting on the remains of aborted infants and requires that regardless of the circumstances of their demise, every deceased unborn infant is treated with dignity and respect and that the bodies of aborted infants cannot be sold.
2. “Missouri Preamble” – 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.
3. Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act – state prohibition on partial-birth abortions which provides stronger enforcement mechanisms than the federal ban on this gruesome and unnecessary procedure.
4. Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act – prohibits sex-selection abortions and abortions performed for genetic abnormalities, including Down syndrome.
5. Women’s Health Defense Act – limits abortions at five months of pregnancy based on the pain experienced by unborn children (and the substantial maternal health risks of such abortions; it is also a legislative component of AUL’s Women’s Protection Project).
6. Perinatal Hospice Information Act – informed consent enhancement requiring information about perinatal hospice and other supportive, life-affirming options for families facing lethal fetal anomalies.
7. Born-Alive Infant Protection Act – requires that children who survive attempted abortions be given medically appropriate care and treatment.
8. Unborn Wrongful Death Act – authorizes a wrongful death (civil) action when an unborn child, at any stage of development, is killed through the criminal or negligent act of a third party.

The vast majority of Americans support limiting late-term abortions. According to a Marist poll published earlier this year, “Most Americans, 84%, agree there should be significant restrictions and safe guards associated with the procedure including limits to within the first three months of pregnancy, allowed only in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother, or never permitted.”

The poll further revealed that more than two-thirds of those who identified as pro-choice believe access to abortion should be available – at most – “during the first three months of pregnancy and only in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother, or never permitted.”

Additionally, 84% of Americans think “laws can exist which protect, both, the health and well-being of a woman and the rights of the unborn.”

“Momentum is on the side of LIFE,” Yoest observes, continuing:

Since the release of the Center for Medical Progress videos, Congress has been examining Planned Parenthood’s trafficking in infant body parts and the half-a-billion in tax dollars that the abortion giant receives each year, while the Supreme Court considers the constitutionality of health and safety standards long championed by AUL.

“But there is more that we can do, and the Infants Protection Project will equip legislators to protect the weakest among us, as we remember the birth of a special child at Christmastime,” she adds.