SEATTLE NEWS ARCHIVES & FEATURES

Students for Life protest infanticide at Patty Murray’s office

Feb 21, 2019, 1:37 PM | Updated: 2:28 pm

Patty Murray...

Students for Life protested outside of Sen. Patty Murray's office in Seattle on Tuesday. (Photo courtesy of Katie Lodjic)

(Photo courtesy of Katie Lodjic)

The issue of abortion is one of the most polarizing topics of modern America. But both pro-life and pro-choice voters were outraged when Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) became the lone senator to block the Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act in Congress.

The Northwest chapter of Students for Life, a pro-life activist group comprised of middle, high school, and college students, was quick to exercise its First Amendment rights to protest outside of Sen. Murray’s Seattle office at the Jackson Federal Building on 2nd Avenue.

The Born Alive Survivors Protection Act would have ensured medical help for babies born alive after an attempted abortion that had taken place just before birth. Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) brought the bill forward for a unanimous consent agreement, as a response to legislation in Virginia and New York that could potentially see doctors allowed to deny lifesaving medical care to babies who survive these attempted moments-before-birth abortions.

RELATED: Dori | WA news outlets protecting Patty Murray by not reporting Senate story

“This law — it wasn’t even talking about abortions or babies before they were born,” Katie Lodjic, Northwest coordinator for Students for Life, told KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson. “This is talking about infants who are already born, who are here in this world, who are living and breathing.”

Therefore, Lodjic said, the bill was not even an abortion debate, but literally the decision of whether or not to kill a living human being. Regardless of whether a person is pro-life or pro-choice, “this shouldn’t be a controversial thing,” she said.

Dori agreed, noting that people can have a debate about whether life begins at conception or fetal viability, but should all be able to agree that letting a live baby die is wrong.

A recent poll by Students for Life backed up this point. The organization found that just seven percent of millennials believe that abortion on demand should be available throughout all nine months of pregnancy.

“They may identify as pro-choice, but they agree that we should have some restrictions on abortion,” Lodjic said.

Based on this poll, the allowances of the New York and Virginia bills don’t represent the will of the American people, Lodjic went on to note.

“That’s a very extreme position, and not many Americans agree with that,” she said. “So they’re not really representing their constituents.”

Dori was shocked to find the Patty Murray story noticeably absent from local news outlets, despite the fact that the Washington senator was the only member of Congress to stop the unanimous consent agreement.

“It’s a disgrace that we’re not calling her out for stopping a bill that would protect infants from dying,” Lodjic said.

With chapters in every state (and Puerto Rico), and events across the nation, Students for Life plans to keep fighting the fight to protect infants.

“The right to life is the most essential right that we all have,” Lodjic said. “And so I think it’s very important that we’re all talking about this and protecting the most innocent among us.”

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Students for Life protest infanticide at Patty Murray’s office