California ProLife

"This is probably not going to survive constitutional scrutiny. Number one, whenever we define a pre-viable fetus as a person that is protected by the equal protection clause of 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 nine-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...this would be an anti-abortion stautute." Barack Hussein Obama arguing against the BAIPA (Born Alive Infants Protection Act) bill.

OBAMA ACCUSES NATIONAL RIGHT TO LIFE OF LYING
MADISON, WI -- Last week the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) released documents proving that Barack Obama has been blatantly covering up his actions as an Illinois state senator to actively defeat legislation to protect the lives of born, living, breathing babies who survive abortion attempts.

The documents included records from the Illinois state legislative committee Obama chaired revealing that Obama voted for language clarifying that a Born Alive bill would not in any way affect Roe v. Wade. But shockingly, Obama turned around and voted against the amended bill which contained the language he claims to this day would have made the bill acceptable to him.

"Obama was caught red-handed in his attempt to deceive the American people when NRLC released these documents," said Susan Armacost, Legislative Director for Wisconsin Right to Life.

Over the weekend, Obama continued the cover-up when he told CBN News correspondent David Brody that NRLC is lying about his actions on the Illinois Born Alive bill. Obama said, "I have said repeatedly that I would have been completely in, fully in support of the federal bill that everybody supported -- which was to say -- that you should provide assistance to any infant that was born -- even if it was as a consequence of an induced abortion. That was not the bill that was presented at the state level. What that bill also was doing was trying to undermine Roe v. Wade."

Then Obama attacked NRLC by telling Brody, "So, for people to suggest that I...somehow in favor of withholding life saving support from an infant born alive is ridiculous. It defies commonsense and it defies imagination and for people to keep on pushing this is offensive and it's an example of the kind of politics we have to get beyond. It's one thing for people to disagree with me about the issue of choice, it's another thing for people to out and out misrepresent my positions repeatedly, even after they know that they're wrong."

Douglas Johnson, NRLC Legislative Director, has issued the following challenge to Obama: "We now challenge Obama to either declare the two 2003 documents to be forgeries and call for an official investigation, or else apologize for his four years of misrepresentation on the issue of babies who are born alive during abortions -- and for calling us liars."

"This issue is not going to go away," said Armacost. "Obama is still blatantly trying to cover up his infanticide votes and the American people deserve to know the truth."
Source: Standard Newswire, August 18, 2008

The following statement was issued on Monday, August 11, 2008, by the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) in Washington, D.C.

New documents just obtained by NRLC, and linked below, prove that Senator Obama has for the past four years blatantly misrepresented his actions on the Illinois Born-Alive Infants Protection bill.

Summary and comment by NRLC spokesman Douglas Johnson:
"Newly obtained documents prove that in 2003, Barack Obama, as chairman of an Illinois state Senate committee, voted down a bill to protect live-born survivors of abortion -- even after the panel had amended the bill to contain verbatim language, copied from a federal bill passed by Congress without objection in 2002, explicitly foreclosing any impact on abortion. Obama's legislative actions in 2003 -- denying effective protection even to babies born alive during abortions -- were contrary to the position taken on the same language by even the most liberal members of Congress. The bill Obama killed was virtually identical to the federal bill that even NARAL ultimately did not oppose."

In 2000, the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act (BAIPA) was first introduced in Congress. This was a two-paragraph bill intended to clarify that any baby who is entirely expelled from his or her mother, and who shows any signs of life, is to be regarded as a legal "person" for all federal law purposes, whether or not the baby was born during an attempted abortion. (To view the original 2000 BAIPA, click HERE.)

In 2002, the bill was enacted, after a "neutrality clause" was added to explicitly state that the bill expressed no judgment, in either direction, about the legal status of a human prior to live birth. (The "neutrality" clause read, “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 without a dissenting vote in either house of Congress. (To view the final federal BAIPA as enacted, click HERE. To view a chronology of events pertaining to the federal BAIPA, click HERE.)

Meanwhile, Barack Obama, as a member of the Illinois State Senate, actively opposed a state version of the BAIPA during three successive regular legislative sessions. His opposition to the state legislation continued into 2003 -- even after NARAL had withdrawn its initial opposition to the federal bill, and after the final federal bill had been enacted in August 2002.

When Obama was running for the U.S. Senate in 2004, his Republican opponent criticized him for supporting "infanticide." Obama countered this charge by claiming that he had opposed the state BAIPA because it lacked the pre-birth neutrality clause that had been added to the federal bill. As the Chicago Tribune reported on October 4, 2004, "Obama said that had he been in the U.S. Senate two years ago, he would have voted for the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, even though he voted against a state version of the proposal. The federal version was approved; the state version was not. . . . The difference between the state and federal versions, Obama explained, was that the state measure lacked the federal language clarifying that the act would not be used to undermine Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court opinion that legalized abortion."

During Obama's 2008 run for President, his campaign and his defenders have asserted repeatedly and forcefully that it is a distortion, or even a smear, to suggest that Obama opposed a state born-alive bill that was the same as the federal bill. See, for example, this June 30, 2008 "factcheck" issued by the Obama campaign, in the form that it still appeared on the Obama website on August 7, 2008. The Obama "cover story" has often been repeated as fact, or at least without challenge, in major organs of the news media. (Two recent examples: CNN reported on June 30, 2008, "Senator Obama says if he had been in the U.S. Senate in 2002, he, too, would have voted in favor of the Born Alive Infant Protection Act because unlike the Illinois bill, it included language protecting Roe v. Wade." The New York Times reported in a story on August 7, 2008 that Obama "said he had opposed the bill because it was poorly drafted and would have threatened the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade that established abortion as a constitutional right. He said he would have voted for a similar bill that passed the United States Senate because it did not have the same constitutional flaw as the Illinois bill.")

National Right to Life and other pro-life observers have always regarded Obama's "defense" as contrived, since the original two-paragraph BAIPA on its face applied only after a live birth; the "neutrality clause" added in 2001 merely made this explicit, and therefore the new clause did not change the substance of the original bill.

Moreover, the overwhelming majority of liberal, pro-abortion members of the U.S. House of Representatives did not embrace the initial NARAL position that the original bill was an attack on Roe v. Wade. The Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee, then as now, were a solidly liberal group, yet only one of them voted against the original BAIPA, without the "neutrality clause," and he cited a different reason. Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), who supported the bill and who described himself as "as pro-choice as anybody on Earth" -- argued that under his understanding of Roe "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." When the original bill -- with no "neutrality clause" -- came up on the House floor on September 26, 2000, it passed 380-15.

These facts should give pause to those who have unskeptically accepted Obama's claim that the Illinois BAIPA bills that he opposed in 2001 and 2002, which were modeled on the original federal BAIPA, were crafted to attack Roe v. Wade.

For the moment we can set that debate aside, however, for this reason: Documents obtained by NRLC now demonstrate conclusively that Obama's entire defense is based on a brazen factual misrepresentation.

The documents 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.

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 see the official "Senate Committee Action Report" on this meeting, click on one of the links below. (The document is dated March 12, 2003, which is the day that the committee convened, but Chairman Obama recessed the meeting until March 13, which is the day that these votes actually occurred.)

Here are links to the official document that records these votes, in three different formats.

ELECTION 08: OBAMA TELLS GROUP HE WILL
"NEVER BACK DOWN"
IN HIS SUPPORT OF LEGAL ABORTION

NEW YORK --With his support of abortion rights under attack by John McCain and pro-life groups, Democrat Barack Obama responded aggressively July 10, calling it an issue from which he will "never back down."

Obama appeared in New York alongside his former rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton, at a fundraiser sponsored by a group dubbed "Women for Obama." The presumptive Democratic nominee, Obama called abortion rights a "critical issue in this election." His speech came one day after he was endorsed by Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion provider.

"Sen. McCain has made it abundantly clear that he wants to appoint justices like [Supreme Court Justices John] Roberts and [Samuel] Alito and that he hopes to see Roe overturned," Obama said, referencing President Bush's two nominees.

"I was proud to get Planned Parenthood's endorsement [July 9], but I have to say that when you look who's got a 100 percent rating from Planned Parenthood, and you've got another candidate [McCain] with a zero percent rating from Planned Parenthood, then it's not really a nail-biter [in deciding whom to support]," he said to laughter.

"I stand by my votes against confirming Justices Roberts and Alito. I've made it equally clear that I will never back down from making sure that women have their reproductive rights here in this country. That's what's at stake in this election," he added to a standing ovation.

Earlier in the week McCain criticized Obama on abortion while appearing at a town hall meeting in Ohio near the West Virginia and Kentucky border. Answering a question about divorce rates, McCain said one way to improve the state of the American family would be to "respect human life, both born and unborn," Politico.com reported. The comment led to loud applause and to a standing ovation from many in the audience, the website reported.

"Sen. Obama voted against, as a member of the Illinois state legislature, a ban on partial-birth abortion," McCain said, calling the procedure "one of the most odious things I've ever heard of."

Partial-birth abortion is a late-term procedure in which a doctor partially delivers a baby feet-first, and -- with the head and much of the body still in the birth canal -- uses scissors to puncture the skull and then suction out the brain, killing the child instantly. Congress passed a federal ban on the procedure, but Obama is co-sponsor of a new bill, the Freedom of Choice Act, aimed at overturning the ban on partial-birth abortion and other pro-life laws nationwide. The law would make abortion a federal right and would keep abortion legal, even if Roe v. Wade is overturned someday. He said in a 2007 speech that the "first thing" he'd do as president is sign the bill.

In endorsing Obama, Planned Parenthood Action Fund President Cecile Richards called the senator from Illinois a "passionate advocate for women's rights."

"As president, he will improve access to quality health care for women [and] support and protect a woman's right to choose ...," she said, according to a statement.

Abortion increasingly is becoming an issue in the presidential race as both candidates seek to solidify their base. Obama's latest statement on abortion came one week after an interview was published in which he told a Christian magazine that late-term abortions shouldn't be allowed for "mental distress" -- a position in direct conflict with his sponsorship of the Freedom of Choice Act. An Obama spokesperson later backtracked; legal experts said Obama's words were in direct conflict with his own previous statements and positions.

Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser, whose organization seeks to help elect pro-life women to political office, criticized Obama's interview with the magazine.

"Barack Obama knows his extreme record on abortion doesn't resonate with everyday American voters, so now he's trying to soften his image," she said in a statement. "It won't work. From his active opposition to the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act to his support for the radical Freedom of Choice Act, Barack Obama is anything but moderate on abortion. He's announced abortion on demand as his top legislative priority. So it is not a surprise that Obama's actual voting record shows his commitment to abortion at any time, for any reason, funded by American taxpayers. He has staked out the minority position on an issue about which Americans care deeply."

POLL FINDS RELIGION DIVIDE -- Republican John McCain leads among religious voters while Democrat Barack Obama leads among non-religious voters, according to a Gallup poll released July 8.

McCain leads 50-40 percent among registered voters who say "religion is important in my life" while Obama leads 55-36 percent among those who say "religion is not important in my life."

The difference is even greater among some sub-groups. For instance, McCain leads 63-27 percent among white voters who identity as either Protestant or non-Catholic Christian and who say religion is important to them. McCain also leads 53-37 percent among non-Hispanic white Catholics for whom religion is important.

But Obama leads 57-31 percent among Hispanic Catholics who say religion is important, and 90-4 percent among blacks who identify as non-Catholic Christians.

The survey was based on telephone interviews with 94,872 registered voters from March through June.

ELECTION 08: OBAMA COVER-UP REVEALED ON BORN-ALIVE ABORTION SURVIVORS BILL

ELECTION 08:
OBAMA COVER-UP REVEALED ON
BORN-ALIVE ABORTION SURVIVORS BILL