Something Gibson said about Obama...can someone clarify?

[BamaGrad03 0]

Look, I'm not starting this thread to start a flame war. I'm just trying to educate myself more on Obama's voting record.

Friday I heard Gibson on the radio talking about how liberal Obama's voting record was...and he went on to talk about Obama's stance on abortion...Gibson said Obama voted AGAINST a ban on killing failed abortion babies.

The way it was explained was that babies that LIVE through the abortion process can still be euthanized POST DELIVERY. There was a vote to ban this procedure, and Obama voted against the ban. Certainly he doesn't support that...or the understanding of what he voted on is being confused. Certainly NOBODY in any level of government ANYWHERE supports that.

Can anyone help me with this?

[RunInRed 16,492]

Look, I'm not starting this thread to start a flame war. I'm just trying to educate myself more on Obama's voting record.

Friday I heard Gibson on the radio talking about how liberal Obama's voting record was...and he went on to talk about Obama's stance on abortion...Gibson said Obama voted AGAINST a ban on killing failed abortion babies.

The way it was explained was that babies that LIVE through the abortion process can still be euthanized POST DELIVERY. There was a vote to ban this procedure, and Obama voted against the ban. Certainly he doesn't support that...or the understanding of what he voted on is being confused. Certainly NOBODY in any level of government ANYWHERE supports that.

Can anyone help me with this?

I am not sure the exact bill you are referring to Or if the bill was isolated to that one specific situation or if it was more encompassing of other stuff.

Here's a bit of information on Obama's stance on abortion in general:

On an issue like partial birth abortion, I strongly believe that the state can properly restrict late-term abortions. I have said so repeatedly. All I've said is we should have a provision to protect the health of the mother, and many of the bills that came before me didn't have that.

Part of the reason they didn't have it was purposeful, because those who are opposed to abortion have a moral calling to try to oppose what they think is immoral. Oftentimes what they were trying to do was to polarize the debate and make it more difficult for people, so that they could try to bring an end to abortions overall.

As president, my goal is to bring people together, to listen to them, and I don't think that's any Republican out there who I've worked with who would say that I don't listen to them, I don't respect their ideas, I don't understand their perspective. And my goal is to get us out of this polarizing debate where we're always trying to score cheap political points and actually get things done.

Q: Do you personally believe that life begins at conception?

A: This is something that I have not come to a firm resolution on. I think it's very hard to know what that means, when life begins. Is it when a cell separates? Is it when the soul stirs? So I don't presume to know the answer to that question. What I know is that there is something extraordinarily powerful about potential life and that that has a moral weight to it that we take into consideration when we're having these debates.

Q: The terms pro-choice and pro-life, do they encapsulate that reality in our 21st Century setting and can we find common ground?

A: I absolutely think we can find common ground. And it requires a couple of things. It requires us to acknowledge that..

There is a moral dimension to abortion, which I think that all too often those of us who are pro-choice have not talked about or tried to tamp down. I think that's a mistake because I think all of us understand that it is a wrenching choice for anybody to think about.

People of good will can exist on both sides. That nobody wishes to be placed in a circumstance where they are even confronted with the choice of abortion. How we determine what's right at that moment, I think, people of good will can differ.

And if we can acknowledge that much, then we can certainly agree on the fact that we should be doing everything we can to avoid unwanted pregnancies that might even lead somebody to consider having an abortion.

Q: What us your view on the decision on partial-birth abortion and your reaction to most of the public agreeing with the court's holding?

A: I think that most Americans recognize that this is a profoundly difficult issue for the women and families who make these decisions. They don't make them casually. And I trust women to make these decisions in conjunction with their doctors and their families and their clergy. And I think that's where most Americans are. Now, when you describe a specific procedure that accounts for less than 1% of the abortions that take place, then naturally, people get concerned, and I think legitimately so. But the broader issue here is: Do women have the right to make these profoundly difficult decisions? And I trust them to do it. There is a broader issue: Can we move past some of the debates around which we disagree and can we start talking about the things we do agree on? Reducing teen pregnancy; making it less likely for women to find themselves in these circumstances.

[An abortion protester at a campaign event] handed me a pamphlet. "Mr. Obama, I know you're a Christian, with a family of your own. So how can you support murdering babies?"

I told him I understood his position but had to disagree with it. I explained my belief that few women made the decision to terminate a pregnancy casually; that any pregnant woman felt the full force of the moral issues involved when making that decision; that I feared a ban on abortion would force women to seek unsafe abortions, as they had once done in this country. I suggested that perhaps we could agree on ways to reduce the number of women who felt the need to have abortions in the first place.

"I will pray for you," the protester said. "I pray that you have a change of heart." Neither my mind nor my heart changed that day, nor did they in the days to come. But that night, before I went to bed, I said a prayer of my own-that I might extend the same presumption of good faith to others that had been extended to me.

more info...

http://www.ontheissues.org/social/Barack_Obama_Abortion.htm

[TexasTiger 13,029]

Look, I'm not starting this thread to start a flame war. I'm just trying to educate myself more on Obama's voting record.

Friday I heard Gibson on the radio talking about how liberal Obama's voting record was...and he went on to talk about Obama's stance on abortion...Gibson said Obama voted AGAINST a ban on killing failed abortion babies.

The way it was explained was that babies that LIVE through the abortion process can still be euthanized POST DELIVERY. There was a vote to ban this procedure, and Obama voted against the ban. Certainly he doesn't support that...or the understanding of what he voted on is being confused. Certainly NOBODY in any level of government ANYWHERE supports that.

Can anyone help me with this?

You participated in this discussion earlier:

http://www.aunation.net/forums/index.php?s...st&p=479287

[TitanTiger 20,511]

His position on abortion is as hard to the left as any serious candidate in recent memory. In fact if you checked the records of Kerry, Gore, Clinton, Carter, Mondale...I'd be willing to bet that none of them would hold to the hard positions he's taken on things like partial-birth abortion and this born-alive bill.

Here's what I said in the thread Tex linked to:

Ok after looking it up, the first Illinois bill (in 2001) that he voted "present" (effectively a "no" vote) on stated that a "homo sapiens" that was wholly emerged from his mother with a "beating heart, pulsation of the umbilical cord or definite movement of voluntary muscles" should be treated as a "'person,' 'human being,' 'child' and 'individual.'"

Obama explained his vote against it thusly:

"Number one," said Obama, explaining his reluctance to protect born infants, "whenever we define a pre-viable fetus as a person that is protected by the Equal Protection Clause or the other elements in the Constitution, what we're really saying is, in fact, that they are persons that are entitled to the kinds of protections that would be provided to a -- a child, a 9-month old -- child that was delivered to term. That determination then, essentially, if it was accepted by a court, would forbid abortions to take place. I mean, it -- it would essentially bar abortions, because the Equal Protection Clause does not allow somebody to kill a child, and if this is a child, then this would be an anti-abortion statute."

Problem is, this isn't a "pre-viable fetus" the bill was describing. It was a baby, completely out of the mother struggling now to survive.

In 2002 the Congress passed a similar bill that included language that specifically said, "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." The bill passed the Senate 98-0.

In 2003, another bill was introduced in Illinois and language was added to the bill that was verbatim the same as the one passed by Congress that I mentioned above. By this time, Obama was the chair of the Health and Human Services committee there. Obama kept the bill in limbo in committee, never bringing it to the Senate floor for a vote.

Later in his debate with Alan Keyes for the Senate seat, he was called on it and he said, "At the federal level there was a similar bill that passed because it had an amendment saying this does not encroach on Roe v. Wade. I would have voted for that bill."

But he'd effectively killed just that exact bill.

I just don't get the man's thinking on this. It seems out of character. Or maybe it isn't.

Here is the language of that bill:

Sec. 1.36. Born alive infant.

(a) In determining the meaning of any statute or of any rule, regulation, or interpretation of the various administrative agencies of this State, the words "person", "human being", "child", and "individual" shall include every infant member of the species homo sapiens who is born alive at any stage of development.

( As used in this Section, the term "born alive", with respect to a member of the species homo sapiens, means the complete expulsion or extraction from his or her 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.

© 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.

(d) Nothing in this Section shall be construed to affect existing federal or State law regarding abortion.

(e) Nothing in this Section shall be construed to alter generally accepted medical standards.

http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/fullt...=000500700K1.36

There's simply no way he can credibly claim he was afraid it would confer rights to a pre-born fetus. The bill specifically rules that out.

[BamaGrad03 0]

Look, I'm not starting this thread to start a flame war. I'm just trying to educate myself more on Obama's voting record.

Friday I heard Gibson on the radio talking about how liberal Obama's voting record was...and he went on to talk about Obama's stance on abortion...Gibson said Obama voted AGAINST a ban on killing failed abortion babies.

The way it was explained was that babies that LIVE through the abortion process can still be euthanized POST DELIVERY. There was a vote to ban this procedure, and Obama voted against the ban. Certainly he doesn't support that...or the understanding of what he voted on is being confused. Certainly NOBODY in any level of government ANYWHERE supports that.

Can anyone help me with this?

You participated in this discussion earlier:

http://www.aunation.net/forums/index.php?s...st&p=479287

Yeah, but my position was based on his failure to support a late term abortion ban. I didn't know about the failed abortion thing until I heard it Friday.

[TexasTiger 13,029]

Look, I'm not starting this thread to start a flame war. I'm just trying to educate myself more on Obama's voting record.

Friday I heard Gibson on the radio talking about how liberal Obama's voting record was...and he went on to talk about Obama's stance on abortion...Gibson said Obama voted AGAINST a ban on killing failed abortion babies.

The way it was explained was that babies that LIVE through the abortion process can still be euthanized POST DELIVERY. There was a vote to ban this procedure, and Obama voted against the ban. Certainly he doesn't support that...or the understanding of what he voted on is being confused. Certainly NOBODY in any level of government ANYWHERE supports that.

Can anyone help me with this?

You participated in this discussion earlier:

http://www.aunation.net/forums/index.php?s...st&p=479287

Yeah, but my position was based on his failure to support a late term abortion ban. I didn't know about the failed abortion thing until I heard it Friday.

Okay, but then you didn't follow the last discussion.

[Tigermike 3,055]

Obama's Abortion Extremism

By Michael Gerson

Wednesday, April 2, 2008; Page A19

Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr.'s endorsement of Barack Obama last week -- "I believe in this guy like I've never believed in a candidate in my life" -- recalled another dramatic moment in Democratic politics. In the summer of 1992, as Bill Clinton solidified his control over the Democratic Party, Robert P. Casey Sr., the senator's father, was banned from speaking to the Democratic convention for the heresy of being pro-life.

The elder Casey (now deceased) was then the governor of Pennsylvania -- one of the most prominent elected Democrats in the country. He was an economic progressive in the Roosevelt tradition. But his Irish Catholic conscience led him to oppose abortion. So the Clintons chose to humiliate him. It was a sign and a warning of much mean-spirited pettiness to come.

The younger Casey, no doubt, is a sincere fan of Obama. He also must have found it satisfying to help along the cycle of political justice.

But by Casey's father's standard of social justice for the unborn, Obama is badly lacking.

Obama has not made abortion rights the shouted refrain of his campaign, as other Democrats have done. He seems to realize that pro-choice enthusiasm is inconsistent with a reputation for post-partisanship.

But Obama's record on abortion is extreme. He opposed the ban on partial-birth abortion -- a practice a fellow Democrat, the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, once called "too close to infanticide." Obama strongly criticized the Supreme Court decision upholding the partial-birth ban. In the Illinois state Senate, he opposed a bill similar to the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, which prevents the killing of infants mistakenly left alive by abortion. And now Obama has oddly claimed that he would not want his daughters to be "punished with a baby" because of a crisis pregnancy -- hardly a welcoming attitude toward new life.

For decades, most Democrats and many Republicans have hoped the political debate on abortion would simply go away. But it is the issue that does not die. Recent polls have shown that young people are more likely than their elders to support abortion restrictions. Few Americans oppose abortion under every circumstance, but a majority oppose most of the abortions that actually take place -- generally supporting the procedure only in the case of rape or incest, or to save the life of the mother.

Perhaps this is a revolt against a culture of disposability. Perhaps it reflects the continuing revolution of ultrasound technology -- what might be called the "Juno" effect. In the delightful movie by that name, the protagonist, a pregnant teen seeking an abortion, is confronted by a classmate who informs her that the unborn child already has fingernails -- which causes second thoughts. A worthless part of its mother's body -- a clump of protoplasmic rubbish -- doesn't have fingernails.

Abortion is an unavoidable moral issue. It also has broader political significance. Democrats of a past generation -- the generation of Hubert Humphrey and Martin Luther King Jr. -- spoke about building a beloved community that cared especially for the elderly, the weak, the disadvantaged and the young.

The advance of pro-choice policies imported a different ideology into the Democratic Party -- the absolute triumph of individualism. The rights and choices of adults have become paramount, even at the expense of other, voiceless members of the community.

These trends reached their logical culmination during a congressional debate on partial-birth abortion in 1999. When Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer was pressed to affirm that she opposed the medical killing of children after birth, she refused to commit, saying that children deserve legal protection only "when you bring your baby home." It was unclear whether this included the car trip.

Having endorsed partial-birth abortion, Obama has little room to maneuver on the broader issue. But he does have some. He could take the wise counsel of evangelical Democrats such as Amy Sullivan and come out strongly for policies that would reduce the number of abortions -- support for pregnant women, abstinence education, the responsible promotion of birth control. An organization called Democrats for Life has proposed the creation of a "95-10 Initiative" in which states and the federal government would work toward the reduction of abortion rates by 95 percent within 10 years. That would be a unifying national goal.

Such efforts will not please many pro-lifers, who are waiting on Obama to support any type of legal protection for the unborn. But a real effort to reduce the number of abortions would indicate that Obama's Democratic Party is moving beyond its humiliation of Gov. Casey. And maybe Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr., with his newfound leverage, could insist upon it.

michaelgerson@cfr.org

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...8040102197.html