Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Obama Blocked Born Alive Infant Protection Act
CitizenLink: Obama Blocked Born Alive Infant Protection Act
He often stood alone as an Illinois lawmaker in opposition to protections for babies who survived abortion.
Note: This report first appeared in the April issue of Citizen magazine.
On Jan. 10, 2005, newly elected U.S. Sen. Barack Obama visited former colleagues and staffers at the Illinois state Capitol, where he had served seven years as state senator. I happened to be at the Capitol that day, too, and a friend and I took the opportunity to speak to Obama, who had not yet achieved rock-star status and was still approachable.
We were in Springfield to lobby for passage of the state Born Alive Infant Protection Act, legislation that would require hospitals to care for infants who survive an abortion. Obama spoke against the legislation in 2001 and 2002 and single-handedly defeated it in committee in 2003.
My friend stood in Obama’s path and said, “Senator, we are going to pass Born Alive here in Illinois this year.”
Obama smiled smoothly and agreed, “I think you will,” adding, “I would have voted for the Born Alive Infant Protection Act in Illinois had it been worded the same as the federal bill. I think that’s the position the Democrats should take.”
There’s just one thing he forgot to mention: Obama had stopped his committee from adding the federal wording.
With Obama no longer in the state Senate, the Born Alive legislation passed in 2005.
First encounter
An Illinois lawmaker offered the first draft of the state’s Born Alive Infant Protection Act in 2001 after I revealed publicly that Christ Hospital left babies who survived abortion — viable babies whose delivery was induced, and whom the abortionist intended to kill but somehow survived — in a utility room to die.
...
The term “born alive,” with respect to a member of the species homo sapiens, means the complete expulsion or extraction from its mother of that member, at any stage of development, who after such expulsion or extraction breathes or has a beating heart, pulsation of the umbilical cord, or definite movement of voluntary muscles, regardless of whether the umbilical cord has been cut, and regardless of whether the expulsion or extraction occurs as a result of natural or induced labor, cesarean section, or induced abortion.
...
One night, a nursing co-worker was taking an aborted Down’s syndrome baby who was born alive to our Soiled Utility Room because his parents did not want to hold him, and she did not have time to hold him. I could not bear the thought of this suffering child dying alone in a Soiled Utility Room, so I cradled and rocked him for the 45 minutes that he lived. He was 21 to 22 weeks old, weighed about ½ pound, and was about 10 inches long. He was too weak to move very much, expending any energy he had trying to breathe. Toward the end, he was so quiet that I couldn’t tell if he was still alive unless I held him up to the light to see if his heart was still beating through his chest wall. After he was pronounced dead, we folded his little arms across his chest, wrapped him in a tiny shroud, and carried him to the hospital morgue where all of our dead patients are taken.
...
Obama opposed Born Alive in committee, but voted “present” — neither “yes” nor “no,” but merely “present” — on the state Senate floor, one of many “present” votes that Hillary Clinton has cited as evidence that Obama lacks leadership skills. Clinton voted for the federal Born Alive bill, putting her on record as more pro-life than Obama.
When Rep. O’Malley reintroduced Born Alive and its companion bills in 2002, they headed again to the same committee, where Obama rewrote history:
"Ms. Stanek, your initial testimony last year showed your dismay at the lack of regard for human life. I agreed with you last year, and we suggested that there be a Comfort Room or something of that nature be done. The hospital acknowledged that and changes were made and you are still unimpressed. It sounds to me like you are really not interested in how these fetuses are treated, but rather not providing absolutely any medical care or life to them."
Of course, Obama had not agreed with me the year before, and I was the one who had told him about the Comfort Room, which the hospital created in response to my testimony: "We now have this prettily wallpapered room. … There is even a nice wooden rocker in the room to rock live aborted babies to death."
The hospital made live birth abortions look nicer, but the end result was still dead babies.
“What we are doing here is to create one more burden on women, and I can’t support that,” Obama concluded, and voted “no” in committee again.
The bill went again to the Senate floor, where Obama was the sole speaker against it, claiming that it would impose a “burden” on physicians:
[T]his [legislation] puts the burden on the attending physician who has determined, since they are performing this procedure, that in fact, this is a nonviable fetus.
Troubled conscience?
Democrats won control of the state Senate in November 2002, and when Born Alive was reintroduced for the third time in 2003, it was directed to the Obama-chaired, infamously liberal Health and Human Services Committee, where he simply refused to call it for a vote.
By this time Obama was running for U.S. Senate. He won his primary in March 2004, and Republicans recruited former U.N. Ambassador Alan Keyes, who lived in Maryland, to oppose him. It was Obama’s position against Born Alive that persuaded Keyes to run, as he stated in his announcement speech:
"When I was first approached about this possibility… I have to say that my reaction was negative…. What finally caught my eye, however… what finally arrested my attention and forced me to consider whether I not only had the opportunity to oppose him, but the obligation… was when I learned that (Obama) had actually, in April 2002, apparently cast a vote that would continue to allow live birth abortions in the state of Illinois … .
"We are talking about a situation in which, in the course of an abortion procedure, a child has been born alive — is out of the womb, breathing and living on its own — and he cast a vote against the idea that we should not stand by and let that child die!"
Obama later admitted Keyes’ comment “nagged” him and has written or spoke about it several times, although he always misrepresents Keyes’ rationale as being about abortion support when it was specifically about infanticide support. In a July 2006 opinion piece in USA Today, restated later in The Audacity of Hope, Obama wrote:
If I am opposed to abortion for religious reasons but seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.
The Home Stretch - A call to action
Okay folks, it's time to get it ramped up! Four weeks to go until election day and the race is still very close. I am certain that there will be more and more stories out there about Obama and William Ayers, Tony Rezko and a host of others coming out. The democrats will call this "swift boating". I call it bringing out the truth and not leaving your opponent the luxury of creating a good lie in response.
I, myself, will be posting stories that have more and more of an impact. Some of them are things I've resisted posting before because I was hoping not to get too serious about the election. I was hoping America would figure out who this guy is long before now. But it hasn't.
It is time that Mr. Obama come clean on Bill Ayers. It is time for Obama to provide some details on what he considers "responsible" when it comes to off-shore drilling, nuclear power, Iraq withdrawal, etc. Everything Obama is really against, he says he would do if it can be done "responsibly". We need to know what this means. It is time for Obama to own up to his votes on the Born Alive Infant Protection Act. It is time for Obama to tell America why his chief economic advisor is one of the people most largely responsible for the mortgage mess we are in. It is time for Obama to come clean on his dealings with ACORN. It is time for Obama to answer the questions about almost $200 million in unidentified campaign contributions.
To the Mad Sociologist and any other people who disagree with me - sorry. This is my blog and you've got yours. I am more than happy to debate, discuss and disagree and I actually enjoy doing so. But make no mistake - my purpose over the next four weeks is to do everything I ethically can to help get John McCain and Sarah Palin elected. This means there will be no lies posted here, but there will be plenty of questions and plenty of information that I believe people need to know.
To those on "our side": It is time for you to do your part to ensure that our country does not fall into the hands of a liberal President, liberal House and liberal Senate with two liberal Supreme Court justices about to retire. There is too much at stake.
Our party is not perfect - far from it. We have some corrupt politicians, money coming from places it shouldn't and people who put their best interests before our country's. We will deal with them. We must if we are to survive. But allowing the Democrats complete control over this mess they have helped create is not an acceptable solution.
I believe that John McCain and Sarah Palin will do whatever they can to root out this kind of crap from our government. They will not be completely successful but they will be a step in the right direction. If they step on some Republican toes to get it done - then maybe those toes need stepped on.
Your job, dear readers, is to visit here frequently and let people know about this site and other sites like it. Don't let the lies go unanswered.
Who Is Buying The White House?
Sources of more than $190 million in Obama election contributions are unidentified. Will a federal investigation find foreigners illegally rigging the most important presidential election in history?
Newsmax reported last week that Sen. Barack Obama's campaign has collected "the largest pool of unidentified money that has ever flooded into the U.S. election system, before or after the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reforms of 2002."
Federal Election Commission data show that some $222 million of the cash Obama has collected came in the form of contributions of $200 or less, with the Democratic nominee's campaign identifying the donors of less than $40 million of that sum.
Campaigns may accept donations of less than $200 without providing the donors' names and addresses in campaign finance reports, but Sen. John McCain's camp has made its full donor database available on the Internet. Independent campaign finance watchdog organizations have asked the Obama campaign to list all its donors, as well, but it's refused. What is Obama hiding?
Archives prove Obama was a New Party member
Personally, I don't believe it. I'm sure Mr. Obama just occasionally ran into this party in the neighborhood </sarcasm>
American Thinker Blog: Archives prove Obama was a New Party member
Obama's career bears many signs of being helped along by the radical left. At the critical moment when he entered electoral politics, he was part of a movement to take over an established political party and direct it to the task of building a socialist America.
Last Night's Debate
For anyone looking for my analysis of last night's debate, here it is: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
McCain did fine and got a couple of jabs in (finally) about Obama's ties to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac but the questions were no different than the last debate and all we heard, for the most part, was the same old stump speeches we've been hearing for the last 2 months.
Things will get much sharper from here on out but last night was a waste of 90 minutes of my time.
It Is Here! The Banned SNL Skit Cannot Hide From Louie
Saturday Night Live finally does a funny skit that makes fun of both sides and NBC can't stand to let it be seen. Why is that?
View it at the site below. The scary thing is that, even though it is hilarious, it is incredibly accurate.
It Is Here! The Banned SNL Skit Cannot Hide From Louie
It gets put up, it gets yanked, put up, yanked.
Yank this, bitches…
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