Say Anything Blog

Nothing says “leadership” like punting on the tough issues.

DALLAS - U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama side-stepped a pointed query about abortion on Saturday by “mega-pastor” Rick Warren during a televised forum.

Asked at what point a baby gets “human rights,” Obama, who strongly supports abortion rights, said: “… whether you’re looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity … is above my pay grade.”

He went on to reiterate his view that it was important to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies.

Since Obama won’t come clean on when he thinks life begins we’ll have to look at his past actions on the issue.  And the most illuminating of those is Obama’s opposition to bills protecting babies who survive abortion and are alive outside of the mother’s womb:

Earlier this decade, such living, breathing, babies who survived labor were “shelved” - left to die and disposed of with other medical waste, or were “aborted” - killed outside the womb. The practice was ultimately banned by unanimous Congressional votes, as even the most pro-abortion Senate Democrats - including every defender of partial-birth abortion - recognized that killing these breathing babies is no longer abortion in any real sense. It crosses the line; it is infanticide. Yet, incredibly, Obama repeatedly worked to deny these living babies any right to life.

Jill Stanek, an Illinois nurse, testified in the US Congress in 2000 and 2001 - and before Obama’s Illinois Senate Judiciary Committee - about how induced labor abortions were handled at her hospital, relating this story: “One night, a nursing co-worker was taking an aborted Down 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 the time to hold him. I couldn’t bear the thought of this suffering child lying alone in a Soiled Utility Room, so I cradled and rocked him for the 45 minutes that he lived.” Powerful stuff. Obama, however, was reportedly “unfazed” by her testimony.

Various state and federal attempts ensued to curb the gruesome practice, including the federal Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, passed unanimously by both the House and Senate in 2002 (It did not immediately become law.)

In essence, these acts state that, whether wanted or not, once a baby is fully born, it is recognized as fully human and is entitled to equal protection of the law under the 14th Amendment. Even pro-abortion Democrats supported the BAIPA because it contained explicit language that it would not infringe on any abortion rights. Democrat Barbara Boxer, arguably the Senate’s most zealous pro-choice advocate, agreed that, with this language, the “amendment certainly does not attack Roe v. Wade.”

But not Obama. In March of 2001, Obama’s Illinois Judiciary Committee considered a law substantially identical to the BAIPA. It passed the Committee, with Obama voting against.

Perhaps Obama said the question was “above his pay grade” because it’s easier than telling people that you are in favor of killing babies who are alive outside of their mother’s womb.