The Audacity Of Hope, IndeedImage via Wikipedia And We’re Not Exactly Happy
Just a couple of weeks ago, polls indicated Obama would win the election with no trouble. Lately, his numbers are dropping. I don’t think it’s because McCain is doing so much better than he was. Old John is still making the same kinds of stupid comments he’s become known for during this election, lying here, being just wrong there, and generally showing his ignorance of current world and American issues. So Obama’s slide in the polls isn’t McCain’s doing.
No, the failing is entirely Obama’s. But what is it, exactly, that’s causing him to fail? To understand, we have to look past the mystique, past the glam rockstar advertising, past the religious innuendo, past the current lack of real issues in this contest. We must dive deep into Obama’s mind. He’s a master at rhetoric, so it serves no purpose to listen much to what he says. To get a grip on what’s really in Obama’s mind, we need to examine his actions. What has he actually done?
Following is just one of the things Barack has done while serving in the Illinois and US Senates. (I should state somewhere in all this that I am a lifetime registered, voting Republican. That said, I decided several months ago that I will not vote for McCain. My opinion of that man is that he’s an idiot, totally unqualified to administer the laws of this country. Watching his public performance this past year has convinced me of that. There is nothing that any Democrat or Independent candidate can do or say that will make me vote for McCain.) Okay, enough disclosure. Let’s get on with this…
Abortion Survivors: Babies or Medical Waste?
While a senator in Illinois Barack served as chairman of the Health and Human Services Committee. In 2003, a bill was voted on which included a provision to confer the status of ‘person’ to babies who survived abortion attempts. In part, that bill said:
Sec. 1.36. Born-alive infant.
8 (a) In determining the meaning of any statute or of any
9 rule, regulation, or interpretation of the various
10 administrative agencies of this State, the words “person”,
11 “human being”, “child”, and “individual” include every infant
12 member of the species homo sapiens who is born alive at any
13 stage of development.14 (b) As used in this Section, the term “born alive”, with
15 respect to a member of the species homo sapiens, means the
16 complete expulsion or extraction from its mother of that
17 member, at any stage of development, who after that expulsion
18 or extraction breathes or has a beating heart, pulsation of
19 the umbilical cord, or definite movement of voluntary
20 muscles, regardless of whether the umbilical cord has been
21 cut and regardless of whether the expulsion or extraction
22 occurs as a result of natural or induced labor, cesarean
23 section, or induced abortion.24 (c) A live child born as a result of an abortion shall
25 be fully recognized as a human person and accorded immediate
26 protection under the law.
A bit of background: An abortion is a medical procedure, and as such, it’s possible for the procedure to be unsuccessful. Which is to say, sometimes the result of an abortion is a living body. Common practice is to treat that result the same as the expected result: as medical waste. Jill Stanek, a nurse at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois, testified to state legislators about what she had seen (emphasis mine):
In the event that an aborted baby is born alive, she or he receives “comfort care,” defined as keeping the baby warm in a blanket until s/he dies. Parents may hold the baby if they wish. If the parents do not want to hold their dying aborted baby, a staff member cares for the baby until s/he dies. If staff did does not have the time or desire to hold the baby, s/he is taken to Christ Hospital’s new Comfort Room, which is complete with a First Foto machine if parents want professional pictures of their aborted baby, baptismal supplies, gowns, and certificates, foot printing equipment and baby bracelets for mementos, and a rocking chair. Before the Comfort Room was established, babies were taken to the Soiled Utility Room to die.
So this Illinois law was aimed, at least in part, at making sure that if a survivor of an abortion attempt exists, it will immediately be granted the rights and treatment of an American citizen. Sounds good to me… but then the amendment was proposed, and section “c” read like this:
“(c) 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.”
Okay, I get it. Take out the part that guarantees humanitarian treatment of abortion survivors and replace that with words affirming the right to abortions. That weakens the bill substantially, but the paragraph (b) explicitly names and describes abortion survivors, so the bill still accomplishes its primary focus. Sometimes in politics, small compromises have to be made to achieve the greater goal. You’d think that everyone would vote for a bill which basically says that anybody alive is a human. So let’s see how the chairman, Obama, voted.
As shown below, Obama voted in favor of the amendment, an expected action for a good Democrat. But then, the same document shows that he voted against the bill, even though it included the amendment he wanted.
Click for a larger View
Obama, even though the pro-abortion language was included in the bill, voted (in perfect unity with his party line) against passing the bill in any form. Naturally, this makes me a bit wary, to say the least. I’m not going to address the morality of abortion here, that’s a matter of faith for most of us and I just refuse to get drawn into that debate. This isn’t about abortion, anyway. It’s about the actions of a man who wants to be president, and how he is lying now to cover up those actions.
So what are we to make of this solitary vote? What does it mean to us today, 5 years later? Let’s see what Barack says about it:
Barack Obama, You Are The Liar
If you watched the video, you saw Barack claim that the Illinois bill included language that would limit Roe vs Wade. He says this on his website and in his book, ‘The Audacity Of Hope’, as well. Scroll back up there and read the bill again. Even in its original form, without the amendment, this is a lie. The amendment he voted FOR explicitly stated that the bill did not address the abortion issue itself, only how infants born alive would be treated. Even so, in the final vote, Barack voted against survivors of abortions. He voted to just let them die.
He also states that the National Right To Life Committee is outright lying about his record. The NRAL has issued a response, which I find on Jill Stanek’s website:
Since 2004, Obama has been betting that the mainstream news media will lack the interest and attention span required to get a clear picture of his actual record regarding infants who are born alive during abortions, and so far that mostly has worked for him.
In his short interview with David Brody, Obama tripled his bet on that proposition by calling us liars. He also relied on diversionary verbal smokescreens, but without directly addressing the newly discovered 2003 documentation that proves the falsity of his account.
We now challenge Obama to either declare the two 2003 legislative documents to be forgeries and call for an official investigation, or else apologize for his four years of misrepresentation on the issue of babies who are born alive during abortions – and for calling us liars.
Mark Rhoads, a former Illinois senator comments:
It is Sen. Obama, and not the National or Illinois Right to Life organizations, that is misrepresenting the significance of his vote on March 12, 2003. The problem here is very serious and goes directly to Sen. Obama’s honesty and fitness for high public office. He either believes his own statements, in which case he has not done his homework as presented above. Or, he is being willfully obtuse in the hope that his obfuscation of the meaning of his vote will be mistaken for sincerity by people who do not want to go to the trouble of investigating on their own. He hides behind the Illinois State Medical Society which naturally looks for any way to minimize any potential statutory liablity that could affect medical malpractice premiums for doctors. This is a matter of moral conviction as to protecting life when there is no reasonable doubt that human life has begun. Former State Sen. Obama, as chair of the Illinois State Sen. Committee on Health and Human Services, led a party line vote against the protection of live human beings on March 12, 2003 and he now implies he would have supported an identical bill at the federal level. That is a form of blatant intellectual dishonesty that should raise concerns in many voters, not just those who closely follow human life issues.
Ed Lasky writes:
State Senator Obama willfully misinterpreted a “Born Alive” bill that came before the Illinois State Senate when he served there. This legislation was meant to address the issue of babies who were born during abortion procedures. Illinois had been rocked by scandals of babies being allowed to die (there were even macabre “comfort” rooms set aside in hospitals where nature was allowed to take its tragic course). Legislation was submitted that afforded these babies the protection of the law. Babies born alive during an abortion would be treated just like every other baby born alive and prematurely. The legislation was also clear that it did not apply to unborn babies and would not restrict abortions or violate Roe v. Wade. Nevertheless, Obama spoke out against the bill saying it would not pass “constitutional muster” and three years later, in his book The Audacity of Hope, wrote that it would have overturned Roe v. Wade.
He was wrong. For those with a legal bent, the elements of this bill may seem familiar — as it should. Almost the exact same bill: the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, which passed in the U.S. Senate in 2001 by a margin of 98-0, supported by Senators such as Barbara Boxer who are fervent pro-choice advocates. Neither these Senators nor has the Supreme Court seen any constitutional problems with the legislation.
On Obama’s website, you’ll find another reason listed to explain away the senator’s vote. He says there that there was already a law in place to protect infants. He’s stretching the truth a bit too far in my opinion. Kevin Vance has looked into that for us already:
Illinois state senator Dale Righter, the ranking Republican on the 2003 Health and Human Services Committee, says Obama did not raise that concern at the hearing: “There was no discussion of anything like that.” Democratic state senator Susan Garrett similarly says she did not remember the 1975 law being raised during the hearing. […]
In any case, the 1975 law does not apply to non-viable infants born alive. According to Paul Linton, special counsel for the Thomas More Society, the 2003 bill was a response to the question, “What duties are owed to a non-viable child born alive?” The bill sought to guarantee comfort care for non-viable infants similar to the care that would be provided to any terminally ill adult. “Many of these babies lived for hours after birth,” Susan T. Muskett, legislative counsel at the NRLC, writes in an email. “Are these babies medical waste, or persons protected by the Constitution? Obama’s reaction was to consider them non-entities under Roe v. Wade until they were ‘viable,’ even when they were gasping outside the mother.”
So what are we to make of all this? What does Barack really think? What does Obama really believe in, other than himself? Let’s examine just one of the things he has said over the past year (emphasis mine):
We Need Better Choices
“Punished with a baby.”
Damn.
I guess, on a personal level, Barack has given this concept alot of thought. His children are ‘miracles’. But his own grandchildren might just be ‘punishment’. I suppose he’s already concluded that if one of his grandchildren survived an abortion attempt, a feat which could arguably be considered a modern miracle, then he would be ready to watch the child just die.
Seeing as he’s given it so much thought from a personal perspective, I have to believe that. And I don’t want that guy ruining (sic) the country. In my book, a liar is a thief who steals the truth. And we all know the old saying, the truth shall make you free.
When a man fails to speak the truth concerning his own actions, he shows himself to be a thief who would steal your freedoms. We’ve lived through nearly 8 years of this already. Quick show of hands: Who wants 4 more years?
The American people need better choices.
.
I am Jon, and mom, I hope I wasn’t too much of a punishment.
No. You weren’t. I am very proud of you.