The Redhunter

Obama: Yes, let me respond to this. If it sounds incredible that I would vote to withhold lifesaving treatment from an infant, that's because it's not true. The -- here are the facts.

There was a bill that was put forward before the Illinois Senate that said you have to provide lifesaving treatment and that would have helped to undermine Roe v. Wade. The fact is that there was already a law on the books in Illinois that required providing lifesaving treatment, which is why not only myself but pro-choice Republicans and Democrats voted against it.

And the Illinois Medical Society, the organization of doctors in Illinois, voted against it. Their Hippocratic Oath would have required them to provide care, and there was already a law in the books.

With respect to partial-birth abortion, I am completely supportive of a ban on late-term abortions, partial-birth or otherwise, as long as there's an exception for the mother's health and life, and this did not contain that exception.

And I attempted, as many have in the past, of including that so that it is constitutional. And that was rejected, and that's why I voted present, because I'm willing to support a ban on late-term abortions as long as we have that exception..

Unfortunately for Obama, he's not telling the truth.

National Right to Life has the goods. Their article is rather long because Obama told so many lies. Here is the one dealing with the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act that has been the subject of so much controversy:

-- The Illinois Born-Alive Infants Protection Act (BAIPA) was a simple three-sentence bill to establish that every baby who achieved "complete expulsion or extraction" from the mother, and who showed defined signs of life, was to enjoy the legal protections of a "person." As a state senator, Obama led the opposition to this bill in 2001, 2002, and 2003. On March 13, 2003, Obama killed the bill at a committee meeting over which he presided as chairman. In the October 15 debate, Obama said, "The fact is that there was already a law on the books in Illinois that required providing lifesaving treatment." This claim is highly misleading. The law "on the books," 720 ILCS 510.6, on its face, applies only where an abortionist declares before the abortion that there was "a reasonable likelihood of sustained survival of the fetus outside the womb." But humans are often born alive a month or more before they reach the point where such "sustained survival" - that is, long-term survival - is likely or possible (which is often called the point of "viability"). When Obama spoke against the BAIPA on the Illinois Senate floor in 2001 -- the only senator to do so -- he didn't even claim that the BAIPA was duplicative of existing law. Rather, he objected to defining what he called a "previable fetus" as a legal "person" -- even though the bill clearly applied only to fully born infants. These events are detailed in an August 28, 2008 NRLC White Paper titled "Barack Obama's Actions and Shifting Claims on the Protection of Born-Alive Aborted Infants -- and What They Tell Us About His Thinking on Abortion," which contains numerous hyperlinks to primary source

Call the NRLC biased if you wish, but at the end of the day you have to deal with the facts.

As far as the partial-birth abortion excuse goes, the truth is that there is never a reason to do a partial-birth abortion "for the health of the mother." This one is a total fraud.

I'm not at all happy with legal abortion for any reason and at any state of the pregnancy, but if we are going to have them, do we the taxpayers have to pay for them? According to Barack Obama, that would be a "yes". And not only that, but as you'll see, since the culture wars are "so '90s", we can't even argue with him about it

Again, the NRLC has the scoop

-- Obama is a cosponsor of the so-called "Freedom of Choice Act" (FOCA) (S. 1173), which would nullify all state and federal laws that "interfere with" access to abortion before "viability" (as defined by the abortionist). The bill would also nullify all state and federal laws that "interfere with" access to abortion after viability if deemed to enhance "health." Because the term "health" is not qualified in the bill, no state would be allowed to exclude any "health" justification whatever for post-viability abortions, because to do so would impermissibly narrow a federally guaranteed right. In short, the FOCA would establish a federal "abortion right" broader than Roe v. Wade and, in the words of the National Organization for Women, "sweep away hundreds of anti-abortion laws [and] policies." The chief sponsors and advocacy groups backing the legislation have acknowledged that it would make partial-birth abortion legal again, nullify state parental notification laws, and require the state and federal governments to fund abortions.

Wonderful.

No doubt some will object that despite all this, Mr. "I don't want them punished with a baby" is still not "pro-abortion" but is "pro-choice." Robert George, in Obama's Abortion Extremism, compares today's pro-choice crowd to those who "accepted" slavery but would not fight against it. Many, such as Thomas Jefferson, were "personally opposed" to slavery, but also opposed abolition. Roberts asks

Would we describe such people, not as pro-slavery, but as "pro-choice"? Of course we would not. It wouldn't matter to us that they were "personally opposed" to slavery, or that they wished that slavery were "unnecessary," or that they wouldn't dream of forcing anyone to own slaves. We would hoot at the faux sophistication of a placard that said "Against slavery? Don't own one." We would observe that the fundamental divide is between people who believe that law and public power should permit slavery, and those who think that owning slaves is an unjust choice that should be prohibited.

Ouch. Be sure and read the rest of his piece, for he lays out the case that even if we do accept the label of "pro-choice" for most people today, Obama himself is so extreme that he deserves the label of "pro-abortion"

For Additional Reading

True Lives: An abortion survivor takes on Barack Obama. An interview with Jill Stanek, who was a nurse at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois. She was the one who brought to light the horrific practice of how official policy was to let living babies who had survived a botched abortion die - slowly, by simply putting them on a table until the expired.

Life with Obama: Abortion champion

Obama and the Born-Alive Act

Life with Obama: A chronology

Deniers for Obama: Abortions do sometimes produce live births

Rick Warren, Obama and the Born-Alive Act