Some Context On Barack Obama, Abortion, and Infanticide

Nearly two years ago, Amanda Carpenter wrote this piece about Barack Obama's opposition to a piece of legislation known as the Induced Infant Liability Act. This bill would have made it illegal to kill a baby that survived a botched abortion. Shockingly enough, it appears that such a bill must be created in order to make such a thing illegal. Even more shocking is that it never passed the State Legislature of Illinois. In fact, it never made it out of the committee that Barack Obama chaired, the Health and Human Services Committee.

Since this article was published, the issue has been raised from time to time, but it has never gained any serious traction in the mainstream media. Furthermore, the Obama campaign has confronted and demonized anyone that dared challenge him on this. Here is how Ms. Carpenter described an incident between the Obama campaign and Bill Bennet over this issue.

On June 30, 2008 his campaign accused talk radio host Bill Bennett of making “outright false statements” and smearing Obama on CNN because Bennett said Obama supported a bill that even NARAL Pro-Choice America would not oppose. A “Fact Check” document was published on Obama’s presidential website “on CNN and Bennet’s [sic] Inaccurate Claim That IL ‘Born Alive’ Legislation Obama Opposed Was the Same as Federal Legislation He Supported

The dispute arises because the Obama campaign insists that he voted against this bill because he insisted that the bill remain neutral on the issue of abortion and it didn't. In the piece, Ms. Carpenter goes into painstaking detail to show evidence that he did in fact have an opportunity to vote on the bill in that format but didn't. If you are interested just click over to the link.

To me though, that detail is somewhat irrelevant because the story that Obama readily admits to reveals so much on its own. Here is how Ed Morrissey describes the origin of the bill in the Illinois Legislature.

This was no academic debate. The issue arose when, as Freddoso notes. Christ Hospital in the Chicago area got outed for leaving these infants to die after a nurse blew the whistle on the hospital. An investigation determined the truth of the allegations, and the Illinois legislature debated on whether infants born alive during abortions should be considered persons and require practitioners to provide care for them. Obama, even with the redundant “neutrality clause” attached to the bill, said no.

In other words, the purpose of this bill was NOT merely some social statement. It was meant to protect the most vulnerable from corrupt, incompetent, and uncaring health care professionals. Whatever cultural beliefs Obama may have, that should have receded behind the urgent matter of protecting new borns against hospital personnel that didn't feel the need to take care of them.

This bill should have been politically elementary. In the U.S. Legislature a similar bill passed 98-0. Yet, this bill never made it out of Obama's committee and usually lost on a party line vote. As head of the committee, such a legislative impasse ultimately falls on Obama himself.

Let's keep in mind that Obama claims to be post partisan, a new kind of politician, and one that will get things done. In fact, Bob Beckel gave him the monicker of the Cable Guy because he supposedly is all about getting things done. Here was exactly such an opportunity and he failed MISERABLY. Instead of making sure that infants were protected against the worst kind of "health care", Obama allowed this bill to be wrapped up in the worst kind of partisanship.

It doesn't take political genius to figure out that there was plenty of room for compromise here. If it was so important that this bill have neutrality attached to it, Obama should have insisted on it and then twisted Democratic arms to make sure it passed that way. Isn't that the job of the head of the committee? For him to say that he voted against it because it didn't have this neutrality is simply laughable? The legislative process is meant for exactly the kind of common sense compromise he claims never happened. If he was head of the committee, who exactly is to blame for this no brainer bill never leaving his committee?

These are all questions that the MSM should be asking of Barack Obama. How can he claim to be so different, so post partisan, and yet act so partisan and typically politician on something as simple as making sure that new borns are protected against bad medicine?

In this case, the facts speak for themselves. His committee had a no brainer bill. It should have passed in some form. It did pass the U.S. legislature with absolutely no no votes. Yet, in his committee, nearly every vote ended party line. For him to claim the mantle of post partisan and new would be funny if the stakes weren't so high.