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The definition would apply to any live, born baby, regardless of whether the baby is considered viable and regardless of whether the child survived an abortion.

"The point is, a child's status should not be affected by whether the mother wanted the child or not," says bill sponsor Rep. Charles T. Canady, a Florida Republican.

Recent court decisions prompted the legislation. In June, the Supreme Court struck down Nebraska's partial-birth abortion ban, essentially invalidating 30 other states' laws. A month later, a three-judge panel of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals struck down New Jersey's partial-birth ban, ruling that an infant who is killed during a partial-birth abortion is not entitled to legal protections because "[a] woman seeking an abortion is plainly not seeking to give birth."

"What was described in Roe v. Wade as a right to abort 'unborn children' has now been extended by the Court to include the violent destruction of partially born children just inches from birth," Canady told the Judiciary Committee July 26.

"If the right to abortion entails the right to kill without regard to whether the child remains in the mother's womb, it would seem to follow that infants who are marked for abortion but somehow survive have no legal right to appropriate medical care or to any care at all," Canady said.

While the bill would not mandate medical intervention or change the standard of medical care for nonviable infants, it would require that they receive basic comfort care. "Regardless of their stage of development, any child born alive is worthy of receiving care and comfort," Canady says. "No child should be placed in a metal sink or in the trash" and left to die.

But abortion supporters say the bill is really a deceptive political tactic, designed to erode abortion rights established in the Supreme Court's decision in Roe.

"It's a political move," says Marjorie Signer, a spokeswoman for The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. The group, whose goal is to "ensure reproductive choice on religious and moral grounds," encompasses prochoice advocates from mainline Christian denominations and other religions.

Signer says that while she would "never argue that a [born] baby should be left to die," she believes the bill's underlying motivation is really to restrict abortions and redefine when life actually begins.

"This is why we have to oppose this kind of legislation," Signer says. "It's not about saving babies."

The measure has also drawn the ire of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, which calls hr4292 an unconstitutional effort to "grant legal personhood to a previable fetus"—something the bill's supporters do not deny.

"If the 'fetus' is outside the mother and is breathing and has a heartbeat, then yes it does [have viability]," says Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee. While the bill does not specifically address viability, Johnson says, its passage could mean that a specialist would need to assess some of the babies who survive abortions to see if they are in fact viable.

Stanek says she knows of at least one case at Christ Hospital in which a premature baby who was healthy and showed signs of thriving was allowed to die.

"What's so upsetting is that no one specialized in neonatal care is being called in to evaluate them," she says.

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November 13 2000, Vol. 44, No. 13