As much as Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., detests how his Democratic colleagues in the Senate voted to spike the Born Alive bill on Monday, he credited them for one thing: spinning the argument in their favor enough to win.
“The Left did a really good job at trying to be able to spin it off and try to make it into something it’s not,” Lankford said in a sit-down interview with the Washington Examiner at the 2019 Conservative Political Action Conference at National Harbor, Md.
The Born Alive bill sought to mandate doctors to provide medical care to a child born alive after a botched abortion. The bill failed to reach the 60-vote threshold in the Senate, 53-44, to proceed. Lankford, who voted for the bill, believes Democrats have moved the goalposts on when it’s appropriate to save a child’s life.
“If there’s a botched abortion and the child is delivered instead of killed, what do you do with that child on the table?” Lankford explained. “The obvious thing that we have said is, ‘of course, you help protect that life. They should get medical care.’ They’re saying, ‘Well, maybe if it’s a stillbirth, or maybe if it’s some other medical condition.’ And have tried to twist it off of what it’s not.”
