Obama’s Fight Against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act

My sister originally published this post on her own blog (Proud Reagan Conservative) after conducting extensive research. With the election just two days away, I'm reposting it here.

David

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TIMELINE

1999
Nurse Jill Stanek was a registered nurse in the Labor & Delivery Department at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois, when she discovered that babies were being aborted alive and shelved to die in the soiled utility room.

2000
Illinois State Attorney General and the Illinois Department of Public Health found no law was being broken by Christ Hospital.

2001
Illinois State Senate Bill 1095, Born Alive Infant Protection Act
(This bill did not become law)
Obama voted NO in committee.
Obama voted PRESENT on the IL Senate floor.

2002
Illinois State Senate Bill 1662, Born Alive Infant Protection Act
(This bill did not become law)
Obama voted NO in committee.
Obama voted NO on the IL Senate floor.

2003
Illinois State Senate Bill 1082, Born Alive Infant Protection Act
(This bill did not become law)
Obama voted in committee to add additional language specifically protecting abortion. It was successfully added to the bill.
Obama then voted NO in committee to the updated bill.

Barack Obama has put forth several lies about his repeated votes against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act (BAIPA).

OBAMA’S LIE #1

OBAMA’S CLAIM: There was no need for the Born Alive Infant Protection Act (BAIPA) because there were already laws on the books to protect these infants.

FACT: The Illinois State Attorney General and the Illinois Department of Public Health investigated and found that Christ Hospital violated no current law when they left born-alive aborted babies to die in closets. It was for this reason that law makers wrote the Born Alive Infant Protection Act.

EVIDENCE: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3827/is_200104/ai_n8933816
At the request of Jill Stanek and Karen Hayes (the Illinois state director for Concerned Women of America) the office of Illinois Attorney General Jim Ryan conducted an investigation of the practices at Christ Hospital. In a July 17, 2000 letter to Hayes, Chief Deputy Attorney General Carole Doris wrote, "We have concluded that there is no basis for legal action by this office against the hospital or its employees, agents or staff at this time."

http://www.cwfa.org/articledisplay.asp?id=1437&department=CWA&categoryid=life
The office of Illinois Attorney General Jim Ryan sent a letter to Mrs. Hayes in July 2000, responding to her request for investigation of Christ Hospital. Since the issue addressed medical practice, the attorney general referred it to the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH). The IDPH sent investigators to the hospital in late September 1999, soon after Mrs. Hayes’ original correspondence (attorney general letter, 7/17/00).

On December 6, IDPH gave its report to the attorney general office. IDPH indicated that it found no “violation of the Hospital Licensing Act or the Vital Records Act.” Further, “no other allegations or medical evidence to support any statutory violation (including the Abused and Neglected Child Reporting Act about which [Mrs. Hayes] inquired) were referred to our office by the Department for prosecution” (attorney general letter, 7/17/00).

FACT: Obama (1) heard Nurse Jill Stanek’s testimony that babies were being left to die at Christ Hospital; (2) He was presented the investigation results showing other abortion providers in the state were leaving born-alive aborted babies to die; and (3) Obama was given the Attorney General’s findings showing these hospitals were doing nothing wrong legally under current law.

FACT: Obama refused to concede this was happening, despite the testimony presented to him of infants being left to die after failed abortions. Instead, he said this on the floor of the Senate (pages 32-34 of the April 4, 2002 session transcript): http://www.ilga.gov/senate/transcripts/strans92/ST040402.pdf

[T]he only plausible rationale, to my mind, for this legislation would be if you had a suspicion that a doctor, the attending physician, who has made the assessment that this is a nonviable fetus and that, let’s say for the purposes of the mother’s health, is being — that — that labor is being induced, that that physician (a) is going to make the wrong assessment and (b) if the physician discovered, after the labor had been induced, that, in fact, he made an error, and in fact this was not a nonviable fetus but, in fact, a live child, that the physician, of his own accord or her own accord, would not try to exercise the sort of medical procedures and practices that would be involved in saving that child.

Now, if — if you think that there are possibilities that doctors would not do that, then maybe this bill makes sense, but I — I suspect and my impression is, is that the Medical Society suspects that doctors feel that they would already be under that obligation, that they would already be making these determinations, and that essentially adding a — an additional doctor who the has to be called in an emergency situation to come in and make these assessments is really designed simply to burden the original decision of the woman and the physician to induce labor and perform an abortion.

Now, if that’s the case –and — and I know some of us feel very strongly one way or the other on that issue — that’s fine, but I think it’s important to understand that this issue ultimately is about abortion and not live births. Because if these children are being born alive, I, at least, have confidence that a doctor who is in that room is going to make sure they’re looked after.

During the third presidential debate, Barack Obama again told the lie that there was no need for this law so he voted against it. He’s blatantly lying.

OBAMA’S LIE #2

OBAMA’S CLAIM: Obama has claimed many times that he voted against this bill because it did not contain the kind of protections to abortion that an earlier national bill contained.

FACT: There was specific language in the bill which limited the scope of the bill to born-alive infants. In fact, for the 2003 bill, Obama in committee voted to include additional language which specifically protected abortion, but once the new language was in there, he then voted against the entire bill anyway. http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=28189

This is the specific language that Obama voted to include in the 2003 bill, but
which apparently still wasn’t enough for him:

"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 CHILLING TRUTH

Barack Obama is so intent on protecting abortion, he doesn’t want infants born alive during botched abortions to be protected under the law.

On March 30, 2001, Obama spoke against the Born Alive Infant legislation:
http://www.ilga.gov/senate/transcripts/strans92/ST033001.pdf (page 86)

“Number one, whenever we define a previable 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 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. 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 antiabortion statute.”

Here is April 2002 audio of Obama defending his position against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/media/mp3/2007-04/29383467.MP3

Text:

“I suspect that doctors feel that they would be under that obligation, that they would already be making these determinations, and that essentially adding an additional doctor, who then has to be called in an emergency situation to come
in and make these assessments, is really designed simply to burden the original
decision of the woman and the physician to induce labor and perform an
abortion.”

Obama didn’t want the original decision by the mother to abort her baby second-guessed to the point where if the baby were born alive, he wanted the original decision to have the baby terminated honored.

This man, Barack Obama, is so extreme in his pro-abortion activism, that even when an aborted baby is born living outside the mother, he does not want this new life to get equal protection under the law, but he does want the original decision to terminate the life respected and carried out.

I pray we are not the kind of country that would elect this kind of man as our leader.

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For the best overview on this issue, see:
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=28189
http://www.jillstanek.com/archives/2008/02/links_to_barack.html
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/obama_and_infanticide.html

Must-See Video:
September 29 2000 O'Reilly Factor interview with Nurse Jill Stanek:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9duXeLahkV4