LifeNews.com | Steven Ertelt | Oct. 15, 2008
The Chicago-area nurse who exposed the practice of life-birth abortions that led to he bill Barack Obama repeatedly opposed in the Illinois legislature says Obama lied about his record during the final presidential debate. Jill Stanek says Obama again misrepresented his position and record before the American people.
As LifeNews.com reported, John McCain took Obama to task during the debate when the topic turned to abortion.
“Sen. Obama, as a member of the Illinois State Senate, voted in the Judiciary Committee against a law that would provide immediate medical attention to a child born of a failed abortion. He voted against that,” McCain said.
Obama responded to the charge by repeating his claim that he voted against the bill because it would have undermined Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court case that allowed virtually unlimited abortions throughout pregnancy.
However, as Stanek explains, Obama voted for an amendment to the bill to mitigate those concerns and subsequently voted against the legislation anyway.
Stanek said the bill, the Born Alive Infants Protection Act, “simply stated all born alive babies became legally protected persons immediately upon birth, no matter what gestational age and no matter if unwanted abortion survivors.”
“Obama voted against this straightforward human rights legislation four times stating as the sole state senator speaking against it on the Senate floor in 2001 it would be ‘unconstitutional’ to declare very premature abortion survivors persons,” Stanek explained.
Obama also defended his votes against the anti-infanticide bill by claiming “there was already a law on the books in Illinois that required providing lifesaving treatment.”
Stanek also called that a “lie” saying “Illinois abortion law to this day only protects abortion survivors their abortionist deems fit to live.
“The potential for subjective assessments in these cases is clear to all but Obama. In fact, Obama opposed closing this loophole by voting against legislation to mandate a second doctor be present at deliveries of all live abortion survivors to independently assess their viability,” she said.
Obama not only voted against the bill to protect newborns who survive failed abortions but the Chicago-area nurse says he took a leadership role to defeat it.
Stanek points to Obama’s own campaign web site which indicates he approached the Illinois Planned Parenthood affiliate to develop a strategy to defeat that measure and the ban on partial-birth abortions.
Despite Obama’s claims, Stanek says Obama ultimately voted in 2003 against a version of the bill identical to a Congressional anti-infanticide bill the Senate approved on a 98-0 margin and on which the pro-abortion group NARAL took no position.
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