ADVERTISEMENT

Hirono on Bill Protecting Unborn Children Who Feel Pain: We Should Focus on Children 'Here Already'

April 9, 2019

Sen. Mazie Hirono (D., Hawaii) said supporters of a bill seeking to protect unborn children old enough to feel pain should turn their attention to protecting children "very much here already," during a Senate hearing on Tuesday.

"The word hypocritical does even begin to cover what is happening to women and children across our country," Hirono said before addressing the other people present at the hearing.

"I hope supporters of the bills that we're talking about today, both in the states and in Congress, turn their efforts to improving the lives of the children who are very much here already and who are so poorly served by the Trump administration and its policies," Hirono continued.

Hirono has been an outspoken opponent of rights for unborn children, as well as the recently born. The Senator spoke out strongly against Sen. Ben Sasse's (R., Neb.) Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act in February. Hirono called the bill, which would require doctors to care for survivors of abortion, a "solution in search of a problem" and a "threat to women's reproductive health." Hirono said instead that doctors and mothers should make a private decision over whether infants on the table should live or die.

"Conservative politicians should not be telling doctors how they should care for their patients," she said. "Instead women, in consultation with their families and doctors, are in the best position to determine their best course of care."

The Senate rebuked Hirono along with fellow Sen. Kamala Harris (D., Calif.) in January for advocating that members of the Knights of Columbus be barred from accepting judicial nominations, on the grounds that the organization takes "extreme positions," on issues such as abortion. Hirono had asked that Brian Buescher quit the Knights after his nomination to the U.S. District Court for the District of Nebraska to "avoid any appearance of bias."