Charlotte Oberserver reports Gov. Roy Cooper has vetoed the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which would create civil and criminal penalties for doctors and nurses that do not provide care for newborns surviving abortions.
“Laws already protect newborn babies and this bill is an unnecessary interference between doctors and their patients,” the Democratic governor said in his veto message. “This needless legislation would criminalize doctors and other healthcare providers for a practice that simply does not exist.”
Republicans quickly criticized the veto. In a joint statement two of the bill’s top supporters, Sen. Joyce Krawiec of Forsyth County and Rep. Pat McElraft of Carteret County, said that “caring for a living, breathing newborn infant is too restrictive for Governor Cooper’s radical abortion agenda.”
“We thought Democrats would agree that children born alive should be separate from the abortion debate, but it’s clear they want the ‘right to choose’ to even extend past birth,” they wrote.
However, Democrats have frequently pointed out that killing babies is already illegal, even without this bill. The N.C. Democratic Party tweeted support for Cooper on Thursday, calling it “a partisan bill grounded in anti-choice rhetoric, not medical science.”
This is Cooper’s first veto without a legislative Republican supermajority. Will Republicans convince some Democrats to join them in overriding Cooper’s veto? Don’t hold your breath.
