WASHINGTON, D.C., January 19, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – In a major pro-life victory, the U.S. House passed a bill today protecting babies born alive during botched abortions.

The vote took place on the same day that hundreds of thousands of pro-lifers witnessed to life in the nation’s Capitol during the annual March for Life.

The Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act (H.R. 4712) aims to protect babies who have managed to survive an abortion and are born alive in an abortion center. The bill states that if a baby survives an abortion, that baby is entitled to the same level of care as any other baby of a similar age, no matter how delivered, would receive.

The bill requires that living babies be transported to a hospital for care, instead of being left to the devices of the abortionist. The bill also establishes penalties if health professionals do not provide this level of care. It also allows the mother to sue if her living baby is killed by intent or neglect.

There are U.S. cases of babies who have been born alive after a botched abortion and then brutally killed by the abortionist.

In 2013, testimony was provided about how abortionist Kermit Gosnell killed at least ten babies who were born alive by slitting their spinal cords. Gosnell was eventually convicted of murdering three infants who were born alive during attempted abortion procedures.

The bill expands Bush-era protections for babies born alive during an attempted abortion.

In 2002, the Born-Alive Infant Protection Act — passed by a voice vote in the House and unanimous consent in the Senate — was signed into law by President George W. Bush. The legislation officially called every born baby — even those intended to be aborted — a “person,” a “human being,” a “child,” and an “individual” in federal law.

However, since the original Born-Alive Bill became law, undercover investigations have revealed how abortionists violate it by letting babies “expire” or by not giving them legally-mandated life-saving care when they survive a late-term abortion.

Pro-life advocates say the legislation is necessary to protect the lives of born humans.

“Children born alive are denied medical care and left to die – cold, alone, abandoned and discarded like medical waste,” Jill Stanek, who personally witnessed viable babies unintentionally born alive simply left to die, said.

Stanek said that instances of abortionists leaving born babies to die are more numerous than people might think: “From Kermit Gosnell’s ‘house of horrors,’ to a D.C. abortionist admitting he would not intervene to save the baby, to a former Planned Parenthood medical director stating…whether to provide lifesaving care is (a matter of) who’s watching.”

“Horrific crimes are taking place in abortion facilities around the country,” said Stanek, who is the Susan B. Anthony List National Campaign Chair. “This is infanticide, plain and simple. Everyone should be able to agree on equal protection under the law for these children.”

One reason why abortionists continued leaving born alive babies to die is that the Bush-era law had no teeth. The new law has changed this.

Abortion centers will likely have to change the way they do business.

One witness from Planned Parenthood told a congressional panel that “none of our health centers provide obstetrics care ... We don’t deliver babies at Planned Parenthood ... They don’t know how to manage a term infant or a premature infant.”

The Center for Disease Control reports that 588 of the infant deaths reported between 2004 and 2013 were because of “termination of pregnancy, affecting fetus and newborn.” And those are just the reported cases. Actual numbers of live, birthed babies actively or passively murdered after a botched abortion is estimated to be as much as four times higher.

Babies born alive from botched abortions are called, “Complications,” or, as one abortionist put it, procedures to ensure fetal death are “risk management.”

Undercover videos from the Center for Medical Progress reveal that “the fetal-tissue trafficking industry explicitly incentivizes altering abortion procedures in a way that can lead to infants being born alive (because) intact cadavers are most valuable to researchers.” Even heart-still-beating whole babies make “fresh” specimens, worthy of lucrative remuneration.

“The House Select Panel found evidence that whole-baby cadavers of a viable age have been transferred from some abortion clinics to researchers,” the National Review notes. “Planned Parenthood medical directors admitted to not injecting fetuses with the fatal drug dioxin … because tissue untainted by feticidal agents is much more helpful to researchers and therefore worth more money.”