Such is the sad state of affairs in our nation’s capital that we have to actually force United States senators to go on record as to whether they support the murder of newborn babies. Senators voted yesterday on the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, a bill sponsored by Republican Ben Sasse of Nebraska and co-sponsored by 49 more. The bill requires doctors to provide medical care to infants born during attempted abortions and forbids doctors from killing newborns.

“This should be frankly the easiest vote we ever cast in this body,” Sasse declared.

Just three Democrats voted for it. Three. Thus, it failed to reach the 60-vote threshold.

One wouldn’t think that we need a federal law on the books that explicitly compels doctors to do their jobs (i.e., to “do no harm”), yet recent state laws have significantly rolled back infant protections. New York’s law claims to expand women’s rights, but it really just allows abortion as an option right up to labor and effectively negates born-alive protections.

Sasse first tried to pass his bill by unanimous consent, in large part to prove that there was no such consensus for the country’s newborns. Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) became the Dems’ lightning rod and opposed the move, claiming it was redundant because there are already laws against infanticide. Well, there are also plenty of laws on the books regulating gun purchases and ownership, yet Murray and her Democrat cohorts are still heaping retread proposals onto that pile every time a useful murder hits the news.

There is no federal law to protect newborns in the context of abortion, and state protections can be shoved aside, as New York and seven other states have proven.

Seeing that the redundancy argument didn’t work, Democrats switched tactics and smeared the bill as restricting women’s access to abortion. (See how quickly they turned this from meaningless and redundant to a mortal threat to women’s rights?) Sasse’s bill does nothing to restrict access to abortion. Instead, it makes doctors culpable for allowing born infants to die from lack of medical care and grants women who receive abortions protection from prosecution. As noted in National Review, this bill will also force Democrats to “choose between rejecting infanticide and arbitrary beliefs about who gets to live.”

Meanwhile, the Trump administration is affirming life by ending one federal handout Planned Parenthood has been receiving for years. A new rule issued Friday by the White House prohibits federal family-planning money under Title X from being provided to institutions that make abortion referrals or perform abortions at the same facilities that provide other family-planning services such as birth control or medical checkups.

Planned Parenthood will survive without that particular $50-60 million every year because congressional Republicans continuously fail to stop shoveling another $500 million to the abortion mill every year. Moreover, much of its government funding comes from state Medicaid programs. However, it’s very easy for a gift to become a handout and soon to become expected. Planned Parenthood, having received so many taxpayer dollars over the years, insists it’s entitled to that money. It has promised to sue to block the order. If that fails, then the organization has vowed to drop out of Title X altogether rather than give up providing abortions.

In sum, the macabre Democrat Party of today fights tooth and nail against any move to restrict abortion any more than China or North Korea do, while demanding that American taxpayers foot the bill. “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” indeed…

Update: President Trump was quick to respond, “Senate Democrats just voted against legislation to prevent the killing of newborn infant children. The Democrat position on abortion is now so extreme that they don’t mind executing babies AFTER birth. This will be remembered as one of the most shocking votes in the history of Congress. If there is one thing we should all agree on, it’s protecting the lives of innocent babies.”