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CV NEWS FEED // Washington Democratic legislators have sent to the governor’s desk a bill to make it more difficult to investigate infanticide and sex trafficking. One conservative pundit is warning that it effectively legalizes infanticide and late-term abortions in the state, which currently allows for abortion up to the point of “fetal viability” (24-26 weeks).
Substitute Senate Bill 5093 (SSB 5093), “concerning dignity in pregnancy loss,” repeals the crime of “concealing a birth” and removes death investigators’ jurisdiction over stillbirths, abortions, and premature infant deaths unless there is suspicion of criminal activity, according to The Center Square.
Senate Democrats passed the bill 30-19 April 5, and House Democrats followed suit 58-39 April 9 after a lengthy floor debate. Republican congressmembers proposed various amendments in the debate, all of which Democrats rejected, The Center Square reported.
One such amendment, proposed by
Rep. Jim Walsh, R-Aberdeen, had proposed an amendment that would have enabled investigation if it appeared that the baby was alive at birth and no efforts were made to save his or her life.
Walsh told The Center Square April 10 that the bill overturns a Washington law prohibiting concealing a pregnancy so as to hide causes of the baby’s death.
The bill’s proponents “claim this long-standing law is anti-woman and anti-choice, but this is not true,” Walsh said. “What this tries to prevent is the abuse of pregnant women and where it has the greatest relevance is the matter of human sex trafficking.”
During the April 9 House debate, Republican Rep. Brian Burnett, Wenatchee, called for amendments that would still allow for investigations in cases where sex trafficking is suspected.
Burnett, whose adopted daughter is a survivor of sex trafficking, said he has spoken to a number of survivors who were victimized for years.
“We should be doing everything in our power legislatively, public safety-wise, federally, nationally, internationally, locally to put a stop to this,” Burnett said, according to The Center Square.
The legislation was also decried by Seattle-based conservative talk radio host Jason Rantz, who described the bill as “a state-sanctioned shield for traffickers, abusers, and anyone else looking to cover up a dead infant.”
The bill, he wrote, effectively enables both late-term abortion and infanticide.
Rantz pointed out in an April 14 article for 770 KTTH that the bill also does not require anyone to attempt to help a baby who is born alive during an abortion or premature labor. Because of this bill, no autopsy will be conducted, no criminal investigation, and no one is held accountable, he wrote.
“It’s a dead infant and a closed case,” he wrote.
The bill now heads to Democratic Gov. Bob Ferguson for signing. Rantz asked whether Ferguson will have the moral backbone to do what is right and veto it.
“SSB 5093 doesn’t bring dignity to pregnancy loss,” Rantz wrote. “It brings darkness, secrecy, and the disturbing reality that in Washington state, babies can be born, die, and be swept under the rug without anyone daring to ask why. But they call this progress.”
