{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=FA85E529-7437-4F01-960F-959411066DFA", "Democrats Block Thune\u2019s Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act", "2024-06-18", "2024", "2024-06", "Republican", "Senate", "SD", "John Thune", "T000250", "www.thune.senate.gov", "thune", "https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases", "scraper", "Click here to watch the video.\n\nWASHINGTON \u2014 U.S. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) today attempted to pass his Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, legislation that would guarantee medical care for babies who are born alive after an attempted or botched abortion, but Democrats objected. Thune noted that this common-sense bill is a basic standard of decency, and he called out Democrats\u2019 extreme position on the issue, which allows abortion on demand, up until the moment of birth.\n\nThune\u2019s remarks below (as prepared for delivery):\n\n\u201cMr. President, in just a few minutes I will ask for unanimous consent to pass my Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act.\n\n\u201cThis is a very simple bill, Mr. President.\n\n\u201cAnd it should be a noncontroversial one.\n\n\u201cIt simply says that a baby born alive after an attempted abortion is entitled to the same protection and medical care that any other newborn baby is entitled to.\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s all.\n\n\u201cIt doesn\u2019t limit abortion. It doesn\u2019t make abortion illegal. It simply states that a baby born alive after an attempted abortion is entitled to medical care.\n\n\u201cAnd yet somehow this bill is too much for my Democrat colleagues, Mr. President.\n\n\u201cSomehow saying that a living, breathing baby born alive after an attempted abortion is entitled to medical care is a step too far.\n\n\u201cI\u2019d be interested to know what exactly they\u2019re afraid of.\n\n\u201cAnd I suspect they\u2019re afraid that by pointing to the humanity of the born child they might end up pointing to the humanity of the unborn child.\n\n\u201cAfter all, it makes no sense to say that a baby is not a human being a second before birth and is a human being a second after.\n\n\u201cAnd so I suspect that Democrats are afraid that recognizing the humanity of a living, breathing, born child in an abortion clinic might end up leading to protection for unborn children.\n\n\u201cAnd Democrats are apparently so determined to ensure that the supposed right to kill unborn children is protected that they are willing to oppose a law to protect born children.\n\n\u201cIt is a tragic measure of their extremism on this issue.\n\n\u201cAnd if anyone thinks that abortion isn\u2019t a slippery slope \u2013 that we can somehow devalue unborn babies\u2019 lives while maintaining respect for everyone else\u2019s \u2013 well, I\u2019m here to tell them differently.\n\n\u201cBecause we are at a point where roughly 50 percent of the United States Congress opposes protecting the lives of born human beings if they happen to be born alive following an attempted abortion.\n\n\u201cMr. President, in a matter of seconds now, one of my Democrat colleagues will object to this legislation.\n\n\u201cBut I hope and pray that this will not be the last word, and that one day soon we will get to a point where legislation like this will not be controversial \u2013 and where the human rights of every human being, born and unborn, will be respected.\n\n\u201cMr. President, I ask unanimous consent \u2026\u201d", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T18:24:47Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=FA85E529-7437-4F01-960F-959411066DFA"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.9318729862570763, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}