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Title: Obama abortion support exceeds even NARAL's
Source:
WND
URL Source: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/
Published: Aug 16, 2008
Author: unattributed
Post Date: 2008-08-16 12:30:06 by A K A Stone
Keywords: None
Views: 259
Sen. Barack Obama is more dedicated to abortion at any time for any reason than even the National Abortion Rights Action League, according to documents unveiled by the National Right to Life Committee and publicized by WND columnist Jill Stanek, who also blogs at JillStanek.com. "He actually did vote on March 13, 2003, in the Senate Health and Human Services Committee to approve the Illinois Born Alive Act, which was the same as the federal law. Then he voted it down," Stanek said. "He is the most pro-abortion senator. … Even NARAL went neutral [on the federal Born Alive Infant Protection Act]." The Born Alive Infant Protection acts on the state and federal levels provide that infants who do survive abortions should be given necessary medical care and treatment. Stanek has been working to institute such provisions since, as a nurse, she discovered an abortion-surviving infant alive, but relegated to a closet shelf where the child was left to die. Obama's long reputation for abortion advocacy has been a red flag in his intense efforts to collect support from voters who oppose the idea of partial-birth abortions, which Obama has supported, and who want to protect survivors of abortion procedures. He's often said, and his own website repeats, that he would have supported the Illinois state law protecting those born-alive infants if it had had a "neutrality" clause like the federal law, which states the law specifically is not intended to impact the status of babies before birth. But Stanek said documentation uncovered by Doug Johnson of the National Right to Life Committee reveals Obama did vote against a version of the Illinois that was the same as the federal law, contrary to what the candidate has stated. "Since then we have found two separate documents proving Barack Obama has been misrepresenting facts," Stanek wrote. "In fact, Barack Obama is more liberal than any U.S. senator, voting against identical language of a bill that body passed unanimously, 98-0. In fact, Barack Obama condones infanticide." The following state legislative committee report shows Obama during a 2003 meeting first voted at add a neutrality clause to the state law, but then voted with other Democrats to kill the bill: "Newly obtained documents prove that in 2003, Barack Obama, as chairman of an [Illinois] state Senate committee, voted down a bill to protect live-born survivors of abortion – even after the panel had amended the bill to contain verbatim language, copied from a federal bill passed by Congress without objection in 2002, explicitly foreclosing any impact on abortion. Obama's legislative actions in 2003 – denying effective protection even to babies born alive during abortions – were contrary to the position taken on the same language by even the most liberal members of Congress. The bill Obama killed was virtually identical to the federal bill that even NARAL ultimately did not oppose," Johnson wrote in his report. He noted that the federal law carries the clause: "Nothing in this section shall be construed to affirm, deny, expand, or contract any legal status or legal right applicable to any member of the species homo sapiens at any point prior to being 'born alive' as defined in this section." "The bill passed without a dissenting vote in either house of Congress," Johnson said. Meanwhile, Obama opposed a state version of the law three straight legislative sessions, and even continued blocking a state law after NARAL withdrew its initial opposition to the federal plan and after the federal bill was enacted. As early as 2004 in his run for the U.S. Senate, when accused of supporting infanticide, Obama said he opposed the state law because it lacked the pre-birth neutrality clause. The Chicago Tribune reported: "Obama said that had he been in the U.S. Senate two years ago, he would have voted for the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, even though he voted against a state version of the proposal. The federal version was approved; the state version was not.... "The difference between the state and federal versions, Obama explained, was that the state measure lacked the federal language clarifying that the act would not be used to undermine Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court opinion that legalized abortion," the newspaper said. The Obama campaign in June also issued a "factcheck" that asserted the same arguments, and major media outlets have been virtually silent on the discrepancy between the record and the campaign's statements. Said the NRLC, "NRLC and other pro-life observers have always regarded Obama's 'defense' as contrived, since the original two-paragraph BAIPA on its face applied only after a live birth; the 'neutrality clause' added in 2001 merely made this explicit, and therefore the new clause did not change the substance of the original bill." The documents now, NRLC said, confirm Obama's defense "is based on a brazen factual misrepresentation." The organization has created an image, linked here, encompassing both laws, showing how little variance there is. In fact, the campaign itself has released images revealing how very alike were the state and federal plans: The documentation was sent to Eric Zorn of the Chicago Tribune. "Less than two years after this meeting, Obama began to publicly claim that he opposed the state BAIPA because it lacked the 'neutrality' clause, and that he would have supported the federal version (had he been a member of Congress) because it contained the 'neutrality' clause," the NRLC report said. A separate committee report even documents that the specific "neutrality" clause was added. "Well, if that doesn't beat all," Stanek wrote. "They're continuing to lie despite documentation. I expected many responses, but not that one." The NRLC also cited a contemporaneous Associated Press dispatch that confirmed the committee had "blocked" a bill that declared "any fetus with a beating heart or moving muscles outside the womb is 'born alive.'" Stanek told WND Obama has said the first issue he would deal with as president is to make all abortions at any time legal for any reason, striking down all local, state and federal restrictions. "Abortion is foremost on his mind," she said.
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