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Obama has been lying? I’m shocked, shocked I tell you
Over at National Review Online, Kathryn Jean Lopez links to documents obtained by the National Right to Life Committee that show Barack Obama, as an Illinois senator, quietly killed a state version of the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, a law that would have outlawed infanticide. Not only that, but the “candidate of change” who has promised to sweep aside politics-as-usual has been lying about that fact…well, like a politician.
The Illinois state BAIPA would have mandated that any infant who survived an abortion and had been fully expelled from its mother’s body was a legal person entitled to life-saving medical care. To let such an infant simply die would have become a crime. Even Über-choice New York Democrat Jerrold Nadler supported the federal version of BAIPA, saying, “if an abortion is performed, or a natural birth occurred, at any age, [even] three months, and the product of that was living outside the mother, and somebody came and shot him, I don’t think there’s any doubt that person would be prosecuted for murder.”
Obama didn’t see it that way and has long argued that he opposed the Illinois bill because it lacked a “neutrality clause,” or language that would protect legal abortions.
It turns out that’s not true.
Documents obtained by NRLC prove that “in March 2003, state Senator Obama, then the chairman of the Illinois state Senate Health and Human Services Committee, presided over a committee meeting in which the “neutrality clause” (copied verbatim from the federal bill) was added to the state BAIPA, with Obama voting in support of adding the revision. Yet, immediately afterwards, Obama led the committee Democrats in voting against the amended bill, and it was killed, 6-4.”
Here are a full timeline and document links. If he is truly the candidate of change, why doesn’t Sen. Obama now simply come clean and say, “Yes, I’m pro-choice, up to and including infanticide”?
Democratic honesty on abortion would be a refreshing change.
back to top69 Comments to “Obama has been lying? I’m shocked, shocked I tell you”
Yes Lynn……it would be a refreshing change, but I would not hold my breath waiting for any Dummycrat to be honest about anything that doesn’t benefit them first! I first learned about this issue through an e-mail alert from Life News.
Here is what I received: New Documents: Barack Obama Misrepresented Support for
Abortion / Infanticide
Washington, DC — When Barack Obama opposed a bill to stop
infanticide as a member of the Illinois legislature, he said he
did so because it reportedly contained language that would have
contravened the Roe v. Wade decision.
However, new legislative documents show Obama has misrepresented
his position.
Obama, as a member of the Illinois Senate, opposed a state
version of the federal Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, a
measure that would make sure babies who survive abortions are
given proper medical care.
Full story at:
http://www.LifeNews.com/nat4114.html
I do hope this post was appropriate. I am begining to think I was wrong in understanding there was no lower life form on the planet who held an elected office than Bill Clinton…….
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“Democratic honesty on abortion would be a refreshing change.”
I’m not so sure…
There have been folks on this very blog who were honest that Abortion is an ugly thing, and have admitted that it was the killing of a human being. Yet they remained totally unrepentant that they were “pro-choice”, and that this decision should be balanced by the needs of the mother.
To be honest about the fact that it’s murder, and yet be unrepentant is not a refreshing thing.
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LYNN VINCENT: Born Alive Infant Protection Act, a law that would have outlawed infanticide. . . .
Infanticide already is against the law, and infants are already protected.
The proposed law would have turned abortion into infanticide in order to prosecute it falsely. Expulsion of the fetus during abortion is not birth. Women who want an abortion, and the doctors who provide the abortion, don’t perform a delivery in order to kill an infant, they perform an abortion in order to destroy a fetus. There’s no crime there to prosecute unless law makes it a crime by changing the definition of abortion and birth. Destruction of the fetus is abortion, not birth and infanticide.
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Lynn’s muckraking is missing something important — a paragraph saying either: “Obama’s office didn’t return a reporter’s phone calls,” or “Obama’s office issued a prepared statement that said . . .”
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Obama has had a 100% rating from Naral the entire time he’s been a Senator. Here’s a link to Naral’s website. The pdf shows his voting record on abortion issues.
http://www.naral.org/assets/files/obama-fact-sheet.pdf
He’s even farther left on this issue than Naral.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=18647
From the link;
“When the federal bill was being debated, NARAL Pro-Choice America released a statement that said, “Consistent with our position last year, NARAL does not oppose passage of the Born Alive Infants Protection Act … floor debate served to clarify the bill’s intent and assure us that it is not targeted at Roe v. Wade or a woman’s right to choose.”
And yet BO acted as if it was an assualt on Roe, and voted accordingly. He even used it as his reason for doing so.
Scroop,
Wrong. Again. Once a child is outside of the mother, and can survive, it’s no longer a fetus, but a person. Even NARAL agreed, and thats the reason for their comment above. Sorry, you and BO are wrong.
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But Scroop Moth, infants were re-defined to be fetuses until birth so that murder-by-abortion could be legalized.
The abortion proponents were the ones who started defining babies by stages in order to circumvent the moral imperative to protect life.
You have this one backwards.
And I can’t believe that you honestly think the intention of the mother and doctor to abort trumps the actual birth of the child. To kill in the womb is horrible, but legal abortion. To kill outside of the womb is clear-cut infanticide, regardless of anyone’s intention.
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And BTW, THIS is why I can vote for McCain, who has a less than stellar marital record, rather than Obama, who may have been faithful to his wife, but condones the killing of innocent babies.
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If Lynn thinks Obama is a usual suspect, she ought to provide evidence of the pattern of lying she thinks she sees, I don’t see it. In the absence of a pattern, it would be wise to assume that Lynn is interpreting legislative sausage.
It’s clear that the proposed law was not neutral, but presumed that there was something wrong with abortion in the first two trimesters.
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No time now for me to do the research to find out just how the rightists are distorting the truth in this case, but I did notice that the story’s link to the supposedly incriminating document goes to cryptic vote record with no specific details.
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Lynn said it best “lying about that fact…like a politician.” Politician and liar are synonyms, so using the term “lying politician” is a redundancy.
Even though I cannot stand the idea of a President McCain, this issue and most of his other stands make me say I could not at all stand to think of a “President Obama”. I suppose it will be a hold-the-nose vote, but we must defeat the Obamessiah.
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Moth: Destruction of the fetus is abortion, not birth and infanticide.
The point of the federal law that is now on the books is to make it a crime to kill an infant born alive in the process of an abortion. This law passed unanimously in both houses of Congress.
Rick Santorum in a Philadelphia Inquirer article,The Elephant in the Room: Obama: A harsh ideologue hidden by a feel-good image, writes:
Who would oppose a bill that said you couldn’t kill a baby who was born? Not Kennedy, Boxer or Hillary Rodham Clinton. Not even the hard-core National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL). Obama, however, is another story. The year after the Born Alive Infants Protection Act became federal law in 2002, identical language was considered in a committee of the Illinois Senate. It was defeated with the committee’s chairman, Obama, leading the opposition.
Let’s be clear about what Obama did, once in 2003 and twice before that. He effectively voted for infanticide. He voted to allow doctors to deny medically appropriate treatment or, worse yet, actively kill a completely delivered living baby. Infanticide – I wonder if he’ll add this to the list of changes in his next victory speech and if the crowd will roar: “Yes, we can.”
Sooner or later this issue will become central in the presidential election and hurt Obama badly, as it ought to.
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Scroop, your position disintegrates when you consider that nearly every other pro-abortion Democrat at the federal (and state?) level voted in favor of the bill you think is so biased.
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To kill outside of the womb is clear-cut infanticide,
To kill what outside the womb is clear-cut infanticide?
Killing an aborted fetus outside the womb is sloppy work, but not infanticide, certainly not clear-cut infanticide. The elements of infanticide require a delivered infant or criminal violence against the pregnant mother resulting in fetuscide (which some states call infanticide).
There is a clear-cut difference between abortion and delivery — and yes, intention is a more significant than location.
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Here’s some specifics for ya Steve, from the link in #5.
“But Obama voted against this bill in the Illinois senate and killed it in committee. Twice, the Induced Infant Liability Act came up in the Judiciary Committee on which he served. At its first reading he voted “present.” At the second he voted “no.”
The bill was then referred to the senate’s Health and Human Services Committee, which Obama chaired after the Illinois Senate went Democratic in 2003. As chairman, he never called the bill up for a vote.”
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DAVID L , To support abortion rights is not necessarily pro-abortion, but can be merely defense of the constitution and opposition to the use of the government’s police power to stop abortion.
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You’re changing the subject.
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Well,
I want to know how Emperor Ming really got to be a multi- millionaire, instead of the lies he told us, while being a lowly paid state senator and before he became Emperor of the Universe.
In fact with all of his lies, even as a Marxist politician he would have to be classified as a certifiable pathological liar. I’m trying think of something he hasn’t lied about but am not able to.
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“Killing an aborted fetus outside the womb is sloppy work, but not infanticide”
Fetus, a Latin word meaning child or young one.
The simple expedient of using obfuscatory vocabulary is enough to convince Scroop Moth that the morally indefensible is something other than what everyone knows it is. Despite such Orwellian attempts to redefine reality, you can’t kill (a term that was used) that which isn’t alive.
Medically induced abortions kill genetically distinct human beings by any sensible biological definition.
“There is a clear-cut difference between abortion and delivery — and yes, intention is a more significant than location.”
In either case, the intention, to kill a genetically distinct human being, is the same. Location becomes important only because human beings still developing inside the womb are not always defined as persons under the law.
It is no longer a slippery slope. It is a free fall into an abyss of moral horror.
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SANTORUM He voted to allow doctors to deny medically appropriate treatment or, worse yet, actively kill a completely delivered living baby.
Actually, Obama didn’t vote to make it a crime not to provide medical treatment to aborted fetuses or to cause the death of aborted fetuses.
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Llama, be careful, you’re slandering Emperor Ming/St. Obama with hate speech, which is a far worse crime than slaughtering an infant born alive. You must get with the liberal program and regard St. Obama as your personal savior. Either that or end up in a liberal gulag somewhere, probably in Massachusetts.
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In either case, the intention, to kill a genetically distinct human being, is the same.
Of course a human fetus is genetically human. So what? That’s DNA, not a person. Abortion and infanticide are both killing, but the intention is different.
It is no longer a slippery slope. It is a free fall into an abyss of moral horror.
You and I are both against murder. We differ on whether we see the fetus as a person.
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“Killing an aborted fetus outside the womb is sloppy work, but not infanticide, certainly not clear-cut infanticide. “
If you, personally, could go to that “fetus” and put your hands around it’s neck, and choke it to death, then I’ll listen to you. I’ll still think you’d be an inhuman monster if you could, but I’d still listen to you because at least you’d be honest. (I’d not stand too close though, because the urge to beat the stuffin out of you with a shovel would be very strong at that point.)
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Perter,
I was hoping for San Francisco. I wanted to get a signed copy of Pelosi’s new book while she was on her second 5 week paid vacation this year. The title is, ‘We’re Not Drillin’ and I don’t Care If America Dies Horribly – So Long As Osama ….eeerrrrr…. I Mean Obama Wins.’
I just loved Flash Gordon. If I had known that our new Emperor was really The Master of the Universe, Emperor Ming, I would have rooted for Ming instead of Flash 50 years ago.
Now I don’t know if I can lie as well as Obama and fool him enough so he won’t cut my head off. Perhaps Ming will kill his own children instead?
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Scroop is avoiding the main issue of this thread, that Obama is a radical in centrist’s clothing and a liar, to boot, by engaging in the kind of despicable sophistry that Orwell called political language, i.e., language “designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give the appearance of solidity to pure wind.”
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Moth: Of course a human fetus is genetically human. So what? That’s DNA, not a person. Abortion and infanticide are both killing, but the intention is different.
“DNA, not a person, huh! You might read the chilling testimontony of Jill Stanek, an Illinois nurse:
To commit induced labor abortion, a doctor or resident inserts a medication into the mother’s birth canal close to the cervix. The cervix is the opening at the bottom of the uterus that normally stays closed until a mother is about 40 weeks pregnant and ready to deliver. This medication irritates the cervix and stimulates it to open early. When this occurs, the small second or third trimester pre-term, fully formed baby falls out of the uterus, sometimes alive. By law, if an aborted baby is born alive, both birth and death certificates must be issued. Ironically, at Christ Hospital the cause of death often listed for live aborted babies is “extreme prematurity,” an acknowledgement by doctors that they have caused this death.
It is not uncommon for a live aborted baby to linger for an hour or two or even longer. At Christ Hospital one of these babies lived for almost an entire eight-hour shift. Some of the babies aborted are healthy, because Christ Hospital will also abort for life or “health” of the mother, and also for rape or incest.
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.
Nurse Stanek tried to tell Obama these realities but found him cold and unfeeling on the subject, just as you apparently are.
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DAVID L.: . . . the main issue of this thread, that Obama is a radical in centrist’s clothing and a liar . .
As to the radical part — most people feel the difference between abortion and infanticide, the fetus and a person, even if they can’t articulate it. Surely you admit that Democrats’ voting records against partial birth abortion are less significant than what’s right and wrong. Democrats calculate little political advantage in arguing the distinctions involved in the ethics of abortion, and Republicans are quite good at blurring those distinctions and pressuring Democrats into erroneous votes. That may make Obama conspicuous, but it doesn’t make him a “radical.” Too many rational and admirable people support abortion rights for anyone to claim the position is radical. To me, the radicalism is on the side of people who reduce the ethics of abortion to the single issue of location, location, location.
As to the liar part — that strikes me as premature given the fact that Lynn has not reported Obama’s response. Further, I’ve already mentioned two defenses, that the proposed Illinois law isn’t in fact neutral (that was the whole point), and votes on legislative amendments and passage are notoriously capable of variable assessment.
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Scroop, I have always liked your wit, bite, and cut-to-the-chase reasoning. But in this case, your reasoning is Orwellian.
Because you sit on a table does not make it a chair. Likewise, a baby is a baby. Even the most ardent pro-choicers draw the magical distinction that a “fetus” is not a “baby” until it is born.
How would you define “born?” A reasonable, fact-based would define it as “a living fetus expelled from the mother’s body.”
Are you suggesting that *how* the baby was separated from the mother is the determinant of whether that baby is a baby and not still a “fetus?”
If so, then you are saying that the will of the participants and intent of the expelling procedure (whether abortion or birth-giving) determines subsequent objective reality.
IOW, if the mother and doctor intended the contents of the womb to die, then the being expelled from the mother’s body is a “fetus” and can legally be killed.
If the mother and doctor intended the contents of the womb to live, then the being expelled from the mother’s body is a “baby” entitled to life.
That leaves you with a dilemma — if in the first case, the fetus can be legally killed, why then should it be illegal in the second case to kill the baby?
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“Further, I’ve already mentioned two defenses, that the proposed Illinois law isn’t in fact neutral (that was the whole point)…”
And I’ve already shown that “defense” to be full of holes, seeing that even NARAL, not to mention the majority of Democrats, didn’t oppose the exact same bill on the federal level. The point being that it *is*, in fact, neutral. If that’s your whole point, you need to re-consider your position.
You have to explain, with a straight face, why Obama, almost entirely alone, failed to support an anti-murder bill; why he then “misrepresented” his opposition to that bill rather than being forthright about it; and why he can still benefit from this “new kind of politician,” this “post-partisan,” this “diplomatic” veneer painted upon him by his completely uncritical disciples and champions.
And then I’d like to understand why you’re willing to go to bat so energetically for some politician. What’s your personal stake in making sure that never a criticism of Obama sticks? You don’t have to agree with *everything* he says in order to vote for him, you know.
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I hate it when my comments are eaten up by the spam filter.
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PETER LEAVITT: . . . found him cold and unfeeling on the subject, just as you apparently are.
I refuse that assessment. By all accounts, Obama is a warm and involved parent, as I was.
Quite naturally, commenters feel some antipathy toward me for the arguments I make. They are angry at the arguments, and I’m the one making them.
Please consider, however, that many honorable and rational people share the feeling that the fetus isn’t a person. They still hate murder and infanticide, and still are humane and admirable people in other respects.
This insight is a gift to anti-abortion Christians, because it allows you a way out of the dilemma and a trap of having to regard many if not most of your good fellow-citizens as murderers. They may be mistaken about the origin of personhood, but that doesn’t mean you have to regard them as cold and unfeeling.
If you want, you can go into the voting booth thinking Obama is a monster, but you don’t have to, its because you want to.
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#26 “To me, the radicalism is on the side of people who reduce the ethics of abortion to the single issue of location, location, location.”
This I agree with. That’s why abortion should be illegal. Babies in the womb should be protected, just as babies outside the womb should be.
Your point is location plus size. Small babies still trapped in the womb, or recently evicted, in your world, should be subject to being killed if the mother doesn’t want to be bothered with a pregnancy/newborn. Larger babies who escape the womb *with the mother’s blessing* should be protected as people.
Your definition of human depends on size AND location, actually. The whole argument in favor of abortion depends on “location, location, location”, thus the bumper sticker propaganda, “Keep your laws off my body”.
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“Quite naturally, commenters feel some antipathy toward me for the arguments I make. They are angry at the arguments, and I’m the one making them.”
I’d only beat you with a shovel if I caught you trying to kill a live baby- even if you did think it was still a fetus. If I didn’t try to stop you, I would be personally responsible.
You have an interesting choice of words there – “Quite naturally”. Of course one should be angry when an evil deed is done. And of course one should be angry when others argue for it to be done- especially as a protected “right”. If persons are not outraged over, and are in fact, in support of, the murder of an innocent, helpless, human being, then something is not so honorable, admirable, or humane about those persons. They may be rational, but I’d argue that they are rationalizing rather than being rational.
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Lynn –
I don’t claim my argument is not counter intuitive, or not offensive to our nurturing impulses. Childbirth provokes huge emotion, and humans begin treating the newborn as a person almost immediately. It’s a bad thing when they don’t.
However, many if not most people feel that the existence of the fetus precedes the essence of the person, which is social and characterized by free activity and rational thought. That’s why they feel that abortion isn’t murder. That’s also why they feel that the newborn is a person. (And no, this is not an argument for euthanasia, a problem with separate components.)
The expulsion from the womb is one primary event in the manifestation of personhood. Unfortunately, the “pro-life” forces are acting intrusively in marking the physical relocation outside the mother’s body. What about the cutting of the cord, the cry, the passing of the newborn from the doctor’s hands to another human, the nursing? We don’t truly feel the newborn is present in society until other humans see and touch it. Therefore, I would argue that the fate of the newborn is out of sight and still in the hands of the doctor and the mother until mother and child face other humans.
Yes, I place a lot of emphasis on will and intent as elements of guilt or innocence — and as aspects of personhood. Let’s look at birth as a process rather than as a fractional quantity of relocation outside the womb.
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David L :And I’ve already shown that “defense” to be full of holes, seeing that even NARAL, not to mention the majority of Democrats, didn’t oppose the exact same bill on the federal level. The point being that it *is*, in fact, neutral. If that’s your whole point, you need to re-consider your position.
(also responding to the Real AJ in #14)
But in fact the federal bill was NOT “the exact same bill.” That’s the whole crux of the issue. The federal bill contained language making it clear it wasn’t intended to interfere with legal abortions. The Illinois state bill did not.
Obama opposed the Illinois bill because the language was ripe to be overturned as unconstitutional, or so he has said.
The issue at hand now is whether he had an opportunity to support a version of the Illinois bill with the langauge amended to remove that objection. Thus, the yet-unproven allegation that he is lying.
Well, I say, prove it. With something more than a link to a scanned version of a document that records some cryptic numbers and a list of yes and no votes. And then show me how he answers when, if such better proof exists, he is confronted with it.
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MOMOF5 — The lack of presence in society makes a big difference to the reach of the law. You are mad that the law doesn’t reach into the womb, so you loiter at the edge of the vulva and blow a whistle when the naval passes by. I think there are good, ethical reasons for the law to keep out of the abortionist’s and obstetrician’s operatories — and out of incubators, too.
As to size, not so much. Development and viability, yes. Presence in society, yes, yes.
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Scroopy wrote: “Expulsion of the fetus during abortion is not birth. Women who want an abortion, and the doctors who provide the abortion, don’t perform a delivery in order to kill an infant, they perform an abortion in order to destroy a fetus.”
Are you some sort of lawyer, the kind they call a sleazebag? Lawyers come up with legal fictions all the time, and this one is a doozy.
Once you’re out, once you’re breathing on your own, you have your own constitutional rights — or a baby should, except when people like you are around. At this point, the mother’s interest and the baby’s interest — because it is no longer a fetus once outside the mother — are two separate interests. Anyone who would follow Scroopy’s definition is in such denial as to what is going on that said person should be institutionalized. But do we have enough room for that many liberal/leftists in the psych ward?
Such a person, such a “doctor, such a “mother” or nurse any other participant or cheerleader in such events IS a monster, no two ways about it.
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NJL, Amen.
I AM glad that this news is out now. It certainly makes the presidential choice clearer.
I am so sad that there is an audience, though, who would enthusiastically support Scroop Moth’s legal definitions in order to make it possible for “mothers” and “doctors” to destroy more children.
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Yeah, Scroop – if it’s wanted, well then it’s a child. If it’s not wanted, and we botched it’s murder, – oops – I mean abortion – then it’s a fetus, and therefore not a real person.
If the intent was to deliver a dead fetus, then it’s an abortion. If a very much wanted child dies in utero and is stillborn, then it was a baby? Is that it? It all boils down to intent?
Whose intent? The mother’s intent? (That would make it a baby). The inconvenienced woman’s intent? (That would make it a fetus). The abortionist’s intent? (That would make it a fetus.)
How about GOD’s intent? (That would make it a human being, fearfully and wonderfully made, knit together in his mother’s womb, whose days were numbered before there was even one of them, formed in the image of God and bearing His likeness.)
But I guess it’s all morally relative, right, Scroop?
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Since there exists a charge of infanticide in the criminal code, there should be no need to pass various bills that essential proclaim the same thing but with more emotion laden language to satisfy a core constituent group.
To accept Scroop’s argument you need to accept two premises; intent matters and person is a legal concept which differs from the definition of human.
Intent does matter in law. It can increase and decrease the severity of a sentence or charge. The difference between involuntary manslaughter and first degree murder lies in the intent of the dependent. One school of philosophy has a long history of placing a certain amount of importance (it can vary between idealist, realism, phenomenology, post-modern etc) on the intent and vision of the observe in creating the reality of the object observed. Intent as a guide is an intellectual and practical defensible premise.
The second premise focuses on what makes a person apart from being human. The two terms are not interchangeable. Until the early 20th century were often ruled as non-persons for purposes of law. Today, children have reduced rights and responsibilities due to the lack of maturity and hence are not full persons under the law although they are certainly human (teenagers exempted they are a whole different species). To define can be as simple as a legislative fiat but I think most people can agree that method is intellectual laziness. I would focus on viability, independence, communication, and societal acceptance so my position is not too far away from Scroop’s.
However, the factors I list would allow for limits to abortions in the third trimester but a Born Alive Act would be mute and unnecessary in my view because this would negate intent and overlaps the charge of infanticide. There’s no need for excessive legislation.
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Scroop Moth,
Talk about slippery slope!! Now it’s not birth, but “presence in society” that makes one human?
So, if a mother delivers a baby in a shack in the Ozarks, takes care of it by herself for five years, and then decides to kill the child and return to society, she basically has simply had a late-term abortion??!!
There are answers to such moral slipperiness, Scroop, but the answers don’t lie in redefining terms, they come in making sure your moral perspective lines up with truth.
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SteveG,
This is from the HumanEvents article: “According to the records made by committee Republicans, the amendment to include in the Illinois bill the language Boxer said protected Roe was approved by a 10 to zero vote of the committee. (This vote, Republicans say, was a common procedural courtesy extended to the sponsoring senator.) The bill as amended was then put to a committee vote. It lost four to six, with Obama voting ‘no.’” It’s then repeatedly documented that Obama claims he would have voted for the state bill if only it had the federal bill’s language in it. Truly, he would have!
The AP article linked at NRO says the bill is SB1082, which is the number at the head of the vote roll call. I realize this isn’t an unbreakable chain of evidence, but the only alternative to saying Obama is lying is to say that a whole lot of other people are lying, effectively engaging in a dark conspiracy to smear Obama. Are you familiar with Occam’s Razor? It beggars belief to see you suspending all semblance of critical thinking just because it’s Obama who’s being criticized–and that for doing what pretty much every other politician habitually does.
Repeat after me: Obama isn’t infallible.
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DavidL: That is correct. It is being claimed that the amendment would have modfied the bill in a way that removed Obama’s objection to its unconstitutionality.
Fine. So I want to see the language of the Illinois amendment and the federal langauge it is claimed to be word-for-word the same as.
I am not “suspending all semblance of critical thinking.” On the contrary, I am asking for evidence of this claim that, if true, should be easy for the ones making the claim to produce. Legislative language is public information.
but the only alternative to saying Obama is lying is to say that a whole lot of other people are lying, effectively engaging in a dark conspiracy to smear Obama
And that is so unlikely why? We’ve already been through claims that Obama is a Muslim, that he is not an American citizen, that he is a secret black separatist and some others … when each one proves false, those putting it forward just move on to another one, in hopes that some of the mud will stick.
Without seeing the language of the legislation being talked about here, why is it unreasonable for me to withhold judgment until I do?
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We shouldn’t need any legislation at all! The only reason this has come up is because we hae to clarify things for people who evidently don’t understand that if you are outside of mom and you are breathing, you’re alive and vested with full constitutional rights. That there are monstrous humans who would let your little helpless self die and not lift a finger to protect you (so you could at least get into the custody of the child protective services and be adopted) doesn’t say much for the future human species at all. Such actions cannot be justified in any way.
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On intent…
If I intend for you to be a non-person, then it’s ok if I beat you with a shovel? If I do it long enough, you’ll cease to be a person alright.
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SteveG,
Did you follow all the links?
“The bill that Chairman Obama killed, as amended, was virtually identical to the federal law; the only remaining differences were on minor points of bill-drafting style. To see the language of the two bills side by side, click here.”
“To view the text of SB 1082 as it was originally introduced (without the neutrality clause), click here. To view the text of Senate Amendment No. 1 (the neutrality clause copied from the federal law), which Obama and his colleagues added to the bill at the March 13 meeting (before killing the bill), click here.”
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I honestly don’t know the answer to this, but I’m sure someone else here does…
Where does Obama stand on capital punishment?
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Or maybe he has more than one position?
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SteveG:
From the Illinois legislature web site.
The bill as introduced:
http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/fulltext.asp?DocName=&SessionId=3&GA=93&DocTypeId=SB&DocNum=1082&GAID=3&LegID=3910&SpecSess=&Session=
Amendment 001 protecting Roe v. Wade:
http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/fulltext.asp?DocName=09300SB1082sam001&GA=93&SessionId=3&DocTypeId=SB&LegID=3910&DocNum=1082&GAID=3&Session=
Any questions?
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Text from the federal bill:
‘‘(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.’’.
http://www.nrlc.org/ObamaBAIPA/BAIPAFederal.pdf
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HRW writes: “Today, children have reduced rights and responsibilities due to the lack of maturity and hence are not full persons under the law although they are certainly human (teenagers exempted they are a whole different species).”
Maybe they have reduced rights in Canada, but that is not so in the US.
There are protected more because of the “peculiar vulnerability of children” but they have the same rights.
Maybe Canada has a subset of human based on age, size, weight and education, but the US doesn’t have that — not that the liberals/leftists here aren’t trying to invent that.
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David L
Use http://tinyurl.com/create.php to create a shorter web address. Just copy and paste into the field.
NJL — They don’t have the same rights — banking, leasing, alcohol, driving, medical etc. are all limited either by private companies (with gov’t blessing) or by the state. In return, children have less responsibility in law, financial affairs etc.
Instead of being hinged on an example of how we define person in law, perhaps you may want to discuss the argument as presented. That is, person is a legal term which is legislatively defined. The criteria we use for definition becomes the matter for contention. A contention which can be discussed without reference to our respective legal jurisdictions.
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Please click here to see a video of Jill Stanek and a brief chronology of Barack Obama’s obstruction of the Illinois Born Alive Infant Protection Acts.
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Scroop Moth – Obama’s pattern of lying has been so persistant that it takes effort to avoid it. He is quintessentially Orwellian in rewritning history (and or the old “this isn’t the _fill_in_the_latest_name_ that I knew” each time he throws someone under the bus for continuing to be who they always were).
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Just as I thought, you’ve got no bill of particulars against Obama. McCain lied when he said Obama failed to visit wounded warriors in Germany because he couldn’t bring cameras, and when he said Obama will raise taxes on personal incomes of $42K, and when he said Obama played the race card first.
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Scroop re: your post @ 33…
I disagree with you, but respect your right to be scary.
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David L.:
I am pretty sure those links were not there when I first went to the page. Maybe it was updated later in the day?
Either way, yes, having seen these, I must admit it looks bad for Obama’s claim here (though I will wait to hear his side of it before forming a final judgment.)
It is disappointing if true, (and for the record, my support of abortion rights ends with a live birth), but it isn’t enough to cause me to vote for McCain.
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So someone who supports killing a live-born child, no longer just a fetus, will still get your vote Steve? That’s sad, and telling. What exactly would it take to change your mind, since supporting murdering a baby isn’t enough?
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AJ: It wasn’t just Obama whose vote defeated the bill. The majority voted against it. That tells me there is a lot more to this story than the pro-lifers are letting on. I just don’t know what it is yet.
NOBODY “supports killing a live-born child.” There must be a reason Obama, AND the majority of the Illinois state Senate, opposed a law addressing that issue that doesn’t equal supporting the practice.
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HRW, 51. They don’t have the same rights — banking, leasing, alcohol, driving, medical etc. are all limited either by private companies (with gov’t blessing) or by the state. In return,
The same could be said of convicted felons and the mentally incompetent. Are they person?
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Steve says,
NOBODY “supports killing a live-born child.” There must be a reason Obama, AND the majority of the Illinois state Senate, opposed a law addressing that issue that doesn’t equal supporting the practice.
There seems to be some confusion here. The bill in question was never voted on by the entire state Senate, because Obama, as chairman, never brought it up for vote. The judiciary committee vote was 6-4, along party lines. It was then refered to the Health committee, where Obama the chairman refused to bring it to vote, killing it.
I’m not sure what you’re talking about with your “majority of the Illinois State Senate opposed” thing. Could you clarify please?
And refusing to stop the practice, is the same as supporting it. They had the chance to do the right thing, and they refused. That’s supporting it.
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Scroop Moth – I’ve been around the ObaMessiah here in Illinois politics since he got his start. He’s personally very charming, but we are limited enough as to post lengths that a bill of particulars is not possible. He will tell any audience what it wants to hear, regardless of what he told the last one last night or the what he will tell the next one the next night. Lying might not be the right word. He might mean what he says at the precise millisecond he says it, and the exact opposite the next night when he says the exact opposite. Maybe he is just a quintessential panderer.
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#59
The practise of permently disenfranchising felons after they have served their time is counterproductive to their re-integration into society. This isn’t a whack job leftist position, the Economist also questions this practises. If you want to felons to participate in society you must restore their rights.
As for the mentally incompetent, they are not denied any rights rather they are unable to use them. If they acquire greater abilities or are able to regain their sanity, they will have the rights restored to them.
Both cases you raise also illustrate the grey area that exists when we enact individual rights and privileges yet limit them to certain individuals. The legal definition of persons is not a straight forward line favored by many in both sides of the debate. The notion that its human life and thus has the same rights as others ignores the very real reality of differing rights accorded to different ages, abilities and even past histories. The opposing notion that rights are only acquired after a proper wanted birth gives rise to a picture of a JP standing next to the doctor to bless the infant into instant legal person hood. The reality is much greyer.
Most certainly its the woman’s body and thus as an individual in modern western society she is accorded personal rights to it. However, as the fetus begins to acquire human traits that separate it from a mere primate we must accord some form of legal protection. Thus, we should look at is a specific human characteristics. Prior to any human characteristics, the fetus must be independently viable which brings us into the third trimester
and then we can discuss what is human. The top two in my mind are communicative ability and societal acceptance (not much different than Scroop I would think). Thus at some point in the third trimester, a balance between the woman’s rights and the rights of the fetus must begin. Its a delicate balance but one I think society as a whole can understand and should compromise at.
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“The top two in my mind are communicative ability and societal acceptance.”
So an autistic child is less of a person than a politician or actor.
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I would like to think an autistic person has greater societal acceptance than a politician. So its a toss up one speaks well and the other is socially accepted.
Look to the second paragraph of #62. Both autistic children and politicians are legally defined as persons but because of limitations and age an autistic child may not be able to use his/her rights but he/she is not denied the same rights as a politician.
On a personal note I’ve worked with autistic children for several years, while most have unique personalities and communicative abilities, there are few autistic youths which had some characteristics which were very eerie and inhuman. this is not a rational judgment nor part of my argument rather a personal and emotive response to my contact with a minortiy of the autustic children I’ve worked with.
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Scroop Moth
You are so far out of bounds it is breath taking.
You have just said that if a baby is completely out of the mother, it can be killed or allowed to die if the mother wanted to abort the fetus. You are condoning murder.
Worse, you are moving the bar on abortion to make infanticide not a crime.
Evil, evil, evil!
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AJ: There seems to be some confusion here. The bill in question was never voted on by the entire state Senate, because Obama, as chairman, never brought it up for vote. The judiciary committee vote was 6-4, along party lines. It was then refered to the Health committee, where Obama the chairman refused to bring it to vote, killing it.
I’m not sure what you’re talking about with your “majority of the Illinois State Senate opposed” thing. Could you clarify please?
I stand corrected. The majority of the judiciary committee opposed it.
And refusing to stop the practice, is the same as supporting it. They had the chance to do the right thing, and they refused. That’s supporting it.
Nonesense.
I oppose wolves killing farmers’ livestock. But I would refuse to support a bill allowing farmers to kill wolves on sight.
By your logic, I must support the killing of livestock by wolves. But in reality, I don’t want the wolves to kill the livestock, I just want a better solution than the one offered.
I’m highly suspicious of the argument being used here because it sounds very much like the campaign ads that claimed Max Cleland opposed providing troops with body armor. That was a lie, and I suspect this is too. I get no hint from Obama that he would like to see babies die; therefore, there must be more to it.
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This post by Vincent seems to miss one crucial point: no legal abortion performed in Illinois could yield a fetus that is capable of living. Therefore, the bill was constitutionally void for vagueness. Obama likely voted it down in an effort to save the Illinois judiciary the work of striking down a poorly drafted law.
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Since the bill was well drafted this does not explain why Obama opposed it and later lied about his motivations. In fact, there exist perfectly logical reasons for Obama’s “Infanticide Lie”
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Bob — you think all abortion is murder, whether destruction of the fetus occurs in the womb or part way out, or whether the fetus dies outside the womb. I think I understand where you are coming from, because if I thought the fetus was a person, I’d also think abortion is evil, in or out of the womb.
A bloody detail. There’s a big difference between allowing an expelled fetus to die in the course of an abortion by not providing extraordinary medical intervention to keep it alive, and active infanticide. In order to prosecute failure to preserve the life of the fetus expelled during abortion, you have to redefine abortion as infanticide. You assert that the location of death turns abortion into infanticide and makes it “evil, evil, evil” (as opposed to “evil”?). My point is that your rule is legalistic, arbitrary, disregards the intention of the participants, and ignores the process of childbirth as an introduction to human society.
I fully understand your antipathy. Please remember there are many fine people whom you admire who feel the same way, even though they don’t articulate these shocking arguments. Go ahead and get mad at me. All I’m saying is that there are people you feel warmly toward — maybe your own relatives, who might agree with some form of this position.
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