Montana's Legislative Referendum 131 Headed for Failure, Shocking Conservatives

Leah Barkoukis | November 10, 2022 7:00 AM

Voters in Montana appear poised to reject a ballot measure that requires medical care for infants born alive, including in abortion.

With 89 percent of the vote in, 52.6 percent oppose Legislative Referendum 131 to 47.4 percent who support it.

According to the Montana Free Press, the measure caused confusion among voters during the campaign cycle over the conflicting ways the referendum was framed.

Proponents said it would give persons born alive legal protections that entitles them to medical care so they are not left to die, while opponents said infanticide is already illegal in the state. Medical organizations rallied to oppose the measure, arguing it would criminalize healthcare providers for offering palliative care at the parents' request to infants who will not survive.

Republican lawmakers who voted in favor of the measure have recently disputed those characterizations, saying that hospice care for dying infants would be allowed under the statute’s language.
“It states health care providers must take ‘medically appropriate and reasonable actions to preserve the life and health of a born-alive infant.’ Hospice care is appropriate and it is disingenuous of the opposition to misconstrue and belittle the hospice line of health care,” said Rep. Matt Regier, R-Kalispell, who sponsored the bill to create the referendum, in a recent op-ed. “Medically appropriate and reasonable health care is the treatment you and I expect when we visit our medical provider. Why would we not afford this same care to infants?”
The text of the bill to put LR-131 on the ballot says it pertains to infants delivered “at any stage of development” by “natural or induced labor, cesarean section, induced abortion, or another method.” The bill defines “born alive” as an infant that “breathes, has a beating heart, or has definite movement of voluntary muscles,” and says physicians and other staff who do not provide life-sustaining treatment to newborns would face felony charges punishable by up to 20 years in prison and a $50,000 fine. (Montana Free Press)