‘Every infant born alive, no matter the circumstances of his or her birth, has the same dignity and the same rights as every other individual.’
President Trump recently signed an “Executive Order on Protecting Vulnerable Newborn and Infant Children.” The Sept.25 order directs Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar to implement “the policy of the United States to recognize the human dignity and inherent worth of every newborn or other infant child, regardless of prematurity or disability, and to ensure for each child due protection under the law.” The policy is not new, but the ramifications of its enforcement are far-reaching. In 1999, Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois, became the epicenter of a scandal that rocked the nation. The hospital, operated jointly by the United Church of Christ and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, was placed under formal investigation by the Illinois Department of Health after nurse Jill Stanek testified before Congress that babies who survived abortions there were left to die unattended in a “utility room.” As the scandal grew to implicate other hospitals, the Born-Alive Infant Protection Act (BAIPA) was passed by voice vote in the U.S. House of Representatives and by unanimous consent in the Senate. It was signed into law by President George W. Bush on August 5,2002. BAIPA simply says that “In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress [etc.], the words ‘person’, ‘human being’, ‘child’, and ‘individual’, shall include every infant member of the species homo sapiens who is born alive at any stage of development.” President Trump’s executive order applies this law to two specific acts of Congress. For 34 years, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) has required health care facilities to offer the full range of life-saving care they have available to every individual regardless of circumstances. The executive order instructs the HHS to make sure that these facilities apply this 1986 law to “every infant member of the species homo sapiens who is born alive at any stage of development.” Emergency medical treatment should apply this same standard of care to children born alive regardless of how premature, or whether the birth was spontaneous or induced. In the same way, babies with disabilities should receive equal treatment. The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 prohibits discrimination against disabled people “in any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” The executive order specifies that children born with disabilities like spina bifida and trisomy — even if premature — are equally protected under the Act. These directives became necessary, according to the order, because “some hospitals refuse the required medical screening examination and stabilizing treatment or otherwise do not provide potentially life-saving medical treatment to extremely premature or disabled infants, even when parents plead for such treatment.
