On Feb. 5, d uring the State of the Union address, President Trump implied tha t women like me executed our babies after birth. On Tuesday, he repeated that same lie on Twitter after the nonsensical Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Act failed to gain enough votes in the Senate to move forward. The bill would have put in place requirements for the care of infants born after failed abortions and might have locked up doctors who failed to comply.

It is unclear how this bill might affect situations where parents decline, for medically appropriate reasons, to have their newborns resuscitated. The threat of criminal prosecution does not enhance anyone’s medical care.

I am an obstetrician and gynecologist who has delivered newborns who could not live, either because they were extremely premature or had birth defects. I have provided abortion care for women after 24 weeks gestation faced with similar outcomes who chose a surgical abortion over a vaginal delivery.

And I also delivered a son who was born to die — my own son.

I am uniquely positioned to say this bill is medically unnecessary and nothing more than a way to warp the reality of perinatal mortality (stillbirth or death within the first week of life) to create confusion about abortion.