West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice signed legislation Monday to punish doctors who do not aid a baby born after an attempted abortion.
The Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act easily passed both bodies of West Virginia’s Republican-dominated legislature this month. The bill was largely a symbolic gesture since existing laws already prohibit doctors from withholding medical help in such cases of failed abortions.
“I stand for life — in all cases, at all times,” Justice said at the Monday signing ceremony. It is “unbelievable, to tell you the truth, that we have to do such a thing.”
The new law allows the state medical board to revoke the license of any doctor who does not care for a baby born after an attempted abortion. Abortions in West Virginia are illegal after 20 weeks gestation, and the state’s lone abortion clinic in Charleston refuses to perform an abortion later than 16 weeks.
Democrats in the West Virginia legislature criticized the bill as redundant and an answer to a problem that does not exist.
“A child born alive who would somehow be killed — that would be murder. It would clearly be murder. There’s nobody doing that, and if they do do it, they’re in jail,” Democratic Sen. Mike Romano of Harrison County said.
