During a pro-life event at Boston College, a pro-choice student and a pro-life advocate went head to head arguing whether or not a baby born alive after a failed abortion should receive medical care.
Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America addressed the college student asking her to explain the difference between offering care to a baby who survived a failed abortion, and providing treatment to an infant dying at the border in an immigration center.
“Do you think babies who are going to die should be resuscitated and given care?” Hawkins asks.
Without a second thought, the college student responds, “yes.”
In a follow-up question to the hypothetical situation, Hawkins asks the student whether or not she believes a baby who is born alive during an abortion at Planned Parenthood should receive care, to which she responds equally as fast, “no.”
Recognizing how quickly she came to her answer, Hawkins offers up her question one more time only to get the same response from the student.
That’s when things begin to get heated. Hawkins presses the woman to explain why she believes two different babies—equally alive, don’t deserve the same treatment based on their dying circumstances.
“Because they’re performing an abortion,” the student said. “So, before that, they’ve already determined that it’s not a baby. I know you’re telling me that science has determined one thing, but…”
Hawkins further presses the woman to specify how an abortionist can determine it’s not a baby.
“Why is it not a baby?” she asks.
Through tears, the student tries to explain that it’s only a fetus, and hasn’t been born yet—when in fact it has been.
“But if it has been born,” she argues, holding up a plastic baby. “ So this baby comes out of utero, and the digoxin hasn’t been successful in inducing cardiac arrest, and this baby is alive…”
The student timidly argues that she believes this circumstance is rare—which it is, however, not terribly rare because as Hawkins points out, several abortion survivors were just recently at the white house.
The argument is an important one as more and more proposed abortion bills continue to pop up around the country. In New York, the Reproductive Health Act, which passed in January, removes protections for babies born alive after an abortion— meaning they could be left to die after birth.
No differently than a baby being left to die by the government at the border, which the student unequivocally believes should not happen–that child should receive medical care.
While Hawkins passionately presents facts throughout the hypothetical, the student comes up short on her explanation of why a baby born after a failed abortion is not actually considered a baby worthy of care.
