Anyone who has followed the controversy over Barack Obama’s opposition to the Born Alive Act in 2003 is certainly dizzy by now from the constant spinning we are witnessing from the campaign. To those of us on the right, Obama’s extremist views on abortion are well known, however in his attempt to paint himself as a centrist candidate, he is trying to hide these views from the general public. This is why when asked on Saturday at what point a baby gets “human rights”, Barack Obama claimed it was “above his pay grade” to answer such a question.

It would appear from Barack Obama’s voting history however, that his opinion as to when a baby becomes entitled to human rights is quite clear. That moment is when the mother grants those rights to the child. This is evidenced by his opposition to the Born Alive Act, which would have protected babies who were born alive due to a botched abortion. Barack Obama continues to claim that he would have supported the federal version of this bill, although he opposed the State version which contained identical language, and I am not prepared to debate that point. What I would like to make clear however is that Obama’s support of the federal legislation was because it would have no affect whatsoever on statutory law, as Federal law does not regulate abortions, State law does.

As Alluhpundit notes:

Since there are no federal abortion laws, the federal bill was essentially a symbolic gesture, whereas there are of course state abortion laws in Illinois that could have been affected by the state bill. Which is to say, he was prepared to take a stand on the issue if he knew that his stand would have … no practical consequences whatsoever.

Barack Obama has further claimed that the Born Alive Act which was presented at the State level was intended to undermine Roe v. Wade. On Monday however, after National Right to Life pressed the issue, Obama’s campaign admitted he had misrepresented the bill. Obama’s campaign is now trying to backtrack, denying such an admission was made, even going so far as to call critics of Obama’s vote liars. They released a statement saying:

“Senator Obama strongly supports Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to choose. He believes that there is a moral and ethical element to this issue, and he believes that women do not make these decisions casually, but wrestle with them in consultation with their doctors, pastors and family. Senator Obama understands that some will disagree with him and choose not to support him, and he respects those with different opinions. But the recent attacks on Senator Obama that allege he would allow babies born alive to die are outrageous lies. The suggestion that Obama – the proud father of two little girls – and others who opposed these bills supported infanticide is deeply offensive and insulting. There is no room for these kinds of distortions and lies in this campaign. What Senator Obama’s attackers don’t tell you is that existing Illinois law already requires doctors to provide medical care in the very rare case that babies are born alive during abortions.”

In fairness, it is true that Illinois law already required doctors to provide medical care if babies were born alive after a botched abortion. Those requirements however were loophole-ridden, and only applied to a small number of cases.

Illinois law has rules — loophole-ridden rules, but rules — requiring treatment of babies who have “sustainable survivability.” If an attempted abortion of a pre-viable fetus results in a live birth, the law did not protect the infant. Nurse Jill Stanek said that at her hospital “abortions” were repeatedly performed by inducing the live birth of a pre-viable fetus and then leaving it to die. When she made her report, the attorney general said that no law had been broken. That’s why legislators proposed a bill to fill the gap.

Obama did not want the gap filled. He did not want pre-viable fetuses/infants to have any legal protection. In the Illinois legislature, he argued that providing them with legal protection would both be unconstitutional in itself — a violation of the Supreme Court’s abortion jurisprudence — and undermine the right to abortion.

Obama was wrong about these points. The Supreme Court’s abortion jurisprudence treats the location of the young human organism, not its stage of development, as the key factor in whether it can be legally protected.

The law which was currently in place only contained provisions to protect the life of a child if he/she would survive without artificial support. It was up to the “medical professional” to decide if the child had reached the point of sustained viability, if in their judgment the child had not, they could not be prosecuted for allowing the child to die.

Obama continues his insistence that the language of the State bill would undermine Roe, and released a fact sheet which detailed the specific language he referred to.

“(c) A live child born as a result of an abortion shall be fully recognized as a human person and accorded immediate protection under the law.”

This is the essence of the argument against Obama, and in his own naivety he has emphasized it. He is specifically stating that he believes a bill which contains wording that guarantees protection under the law to a child born alive undermines Roe v. Wade. Is it no wonder he refuses to answer when a baby is entitled to human rights?

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Abortion, Barack Obama, Election 2008, Features, Liberals, Politics