At issue is Obama’s opposition to Illinois legislation that would have defined any aborted fetus that showed signs of life as a “born alive infant” entitled to legal protection, even if doctors believe it could not survive. Obama opposed the 2001 and 2002 “born alive” bills as backdoor attacks on a woman’s legal right to abortion, but he says he would have been “fully in support” of a similar federal bill that President Bush had signed in 2002, because it contained protections for Roe v. Wade aka “the neutrality clause.”

The National Right to Life Committee (“NRLC “) released a statement Aug. 11 saying it had obtained proof that Obama was misrepresenting his 2003 vote by stating that the Illinois “born alive” bill that he voted against in committee lacked the neutrality clause. Obama, then said the NRLC were “not telling the truth. Because the bills accorded human rights to pre-viable fetuses (that is, fetuses that could not live outside the womb) as long as they showed some vital signs outside the mother, abortion-rights groups saw them as the thin edge of a wedge that could be used to pry apart legal rights to abortion.

Obama has said several times that he would have supported the federal version of the bill, which passed by unanimous consent because it contained the neutrality clause. The NRLC accuses Obama of infanticide and offers evidence that the bill Obama voted against in committee (SB 1082), was amended to contain a “neutrality clause”. The documents NRLC put out are a “Senate Republican’s staff analysis” and a handwritten roll call confirming that the amendment was adopted.

The assertion that the Bill was amended turns out to be true, however, the amendment was a last minute change done in Obama’s absence by the Illinois republicans. Brock Willeford, an Illinois Senate Republican, stated that he wrote the document immediately after the committee meeting and that he was in the room at the time of the votes. Assuming Obama knew of the amendment, he still voted against the Bill but offered a different explanation. He asserts that even with the same neutrality clause, the state bill would have a different effect than the federal bill. He argues that the state bill is state law, not federal law, and so it actually regulates the practice of abortion in Illinois. So a bill defining a pre-viable fetus born as the result of abortion as a human could directly affect the practice of abortion at the state level, but not at the federal level. Obama also argues that the bill was a political game because there are already laws in Illinois that protect these children even when they are born as the result of an abortion. Illinois compiled statute 720 ILCS 510/6 states that physicians performing abortions when the fetus is viable must use the procedure most likely to preserve the fetus’ life; must be attended by another physician who can care for a born-alive infant; and must “exercise the same degree of professional skill, care and diligence to preserve the life and health of the child as would be required of a physician providing immediate medical care to a child born alive in the course of a pregnancy termination which was not an abortion.” Failure to do any of the above is considered a felony. Not surprisingly, the NRLC and Illinois republicans calls this law “loophole-ridden.”

And in fact, the 2005 version of the Illinois bill, which passed the Senate 52 to 0 after Obama joined congress, not only included the neutrality clause, it included an additional protective clause that states that: “Nothing in this Section shall be construed to affect existing federal or State law regarding abortion.” This statute, supported by Illonois repblicans, gives stronger protection to the Roe v Wade decision.

The fact is that this is an attempt to smear Obama by suggesting that he supports infanticide. Nothing more, nothing less b/c the very Bill that Obama said he would support with the changes he suggested was passed a year later after he left for congress.
Obama’s critics are free to speculate on his motives for voting against the bills, and postulate a lack of concern for babies’ welfare. But his stated reasons for opposing “born-alive” bills have to do with preserving abortion rights, a position he is known to support and has never hidden.

In Obama’s own words: I think it’s important to understand that this issue ultimately is about abortion and not live births. [W]henever we define a previable fetus as a person that is protected by the equal protection clause…[t]hat determination, if accepted by a court, would forbid abortions to take place…it would essentially bar abortions, because the equal protection clause does not allow somebody to kill a child, and if this is a child, then this would be an antiabortion statute.

Would it hurt to show some facts? Wiki graph say different

If McCain wins, then abortionists will get their best friend ever. The McCain admin will be the most pro-abortion admin since the Nixon admin.

What utter bollocks.

Refutation: McCain’s answer on when a life begins and has rights Side by side with Obama’s answer. Judge for yourself.

As for Jill Stanek, let her lf speak for herself

I don’t pretend to know all the details of this issue, but a little more respect for human life seems a good thing to me. A little more respect for facts wouldn’t hurt, either.

If McCain wins, then abortionists will get their best friend ever. The McCain admin will be the most pro-abortion admin since the Nixon admin.

In the unlikely event that McCain loses, abortionists will not fear Obama.

Well, it looks like Corsi isn’t the only nutjob you guys swallow with your eyes closed. Stanek is a “wow” kind of stupid. She called Barbara Bush a eugenicist and supports anti-condom ads in Africa. Oh, and she thinks Chinese people eat aborted fetuses. Wow.

I am 60 now and even in Italy ,where I come from, a catholic country, there were many abortions going on 50 years ago,
Number one you will never stop abortions just as you will never stop men from raping women or women selling themselves for many reasons.
You make it illegal then the mother may die also, as it happened before.
What may help is birth control, education and support and adoption made easier in AMerica.
The GOP has given lip service to the issue for 8 years and changed nothing.
Obama knows the best way is to reduce abortion, but you will never stop them.
You get lost in this crap of before and after. Who is better able to run the country and work toward reducing abortions?
McCain can care less about the country he is in the race for his ambition and is truly the spitting image of BUSH, ingnorant, rich, spoiled and shallow.
It will be a great embarassement if he is elected for the entire country and the beginning of the draft.
I am sure McCain killed a few babies when he dropped those bombs.
So far Bush’s war has killed over 100 thosand Iraqi…so are we competing for who killes the most people.

If? If? What else could “it” possibly be – a dog? a squirrel? Also, what does BO do with medical science which keeps making advances in preemie survival? Babies who were pre-viable in 2001 are viable in 2008. Babies who just crossed the viability line in 2001 would have not survived birth in 1940.

BO’s argument here, along with his speech on the floor of the Illinois state house, logically leads to the truth about abortion and abortion rights backers: a baby is only a baby when I say it is. We abort because we can – we’re bigger and stronger than these tiny human beings, and they are in our way.

He cannot survive outside of the protection of teleprompters and a prepared speech.

(credit to raymond pronk)