Obama - "Mental distress does not justify grounds for late term abortions"
Obama - Was the ONLY senator to speak against the baby-protecting bills, in which a baby with down syndrome would be given medical treatment by the state, if the abortion failed...basically kill the baby out of the womb.
Obama Abortion Stance Depends on the CrowdJ. Mahoney, director of the Christian Defense Coalition, says Obama would have "the most extremist policies on abortion of any President in history. Senator Obama's views on abortion are so radical that he even wants American citizens to pay for them. This would include Catholics, Evangelicals and all people of faith. He would also expand abortion rights through his passionate support of The Freedom of Choice Act."
But in an attempt to woo evagelical voters, Obama seemed to be moving rightward on the issue -- saying:
"I have repeatedly said that I think it’s entirely appropriate for states to restrict or even prohibit late-term abortions as long as there is a strict, well-defined exception for the health of the mother. Now, I don’t think that 'mental distress' qualifies as the health of the mother. I think it has to be a serious physical issue that arises in pregnancy, where there are real, significant problems to the mother carrying that child to term. Otherwise, as long as there is such a medical exception in place, I think we can prohibit late-term abortions."
The language Obama used in that response seemed to remove "mental distress" as an allowable exception justifying a post-22 week abortion.
On Saturday, after a reporter noted to Obama that he had said that mental distress shouldn't be a reason for late-term abortion, Obama clarified, "historically I have been a strong believer in a women's right to choose with her doctor, her pastor and her family...I have consistently been saying that you have to have a health exception on many significant restrictions or bans on abortions including late-term abortions. In the past there has been some fear on the part of people who, not only people who are anti-abortion, but people who may be in the middle, that that means that if a woman just doesn't feel good then that is an exception. That's never been the case."
Obama continued: "I don't think that is how it has been interpreted. My only point is that in an area like partial-birth abortion having a mental, having a health exception can be defined rigorously. It can be defined through physical health, It can be defined by serious clinical mental-health diseases. It is not just a matter of feeling blue. I don't think that's how pro-choice folks have interpreted it. I don't think that's how the courts have interpreted it and I think that's important to emphasize and understand." ...
Some abortion opponents suggest that Obama was merely trying to muddy the waters and sound more centrist on the issue -- as if his mind were open to some abortion bans, when in fact he was merely stating current law wrapped in some triangulating language..."
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/07/obamas-abortion.htmlBarack Obama is the most pro-abortion presidential candidate ever. He is so pro-abortion he refused as an Illinois state senator to support legislation to protect babies who survived late-term abortions because he did not want to concede -- as he explained in a cold-blooded speech on the Illinois Senate floor -- that these babies, fully outside their mothers' wombs, with their hearts beating and lungs heaving, were in fact "persons."
"Persons," of course, are guaranteed equal protection of the law under the 14th Amendment.
In 2004, U.S. Senate-candidate Obama mischaracterized his opposition to this legislation. Now, as a presidential frontrunner, he should be held accountable for what he actually said and did about the Born Alive Infants Bill.
State and federal versions of this bill became an issue earlier this decade because of "induced labor abortion." This is usually performed on a baby with Down's Syndrome or another problem discovered on the cusp of viability. A doctor medicates the mother to cause premature labor. Babies surviving labor are left untreated to die.
Jill Stanek, who was a nurse at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Ill., testified in the U.S. Congress in 2000 and 2001 about how "induced labor abortions" were handled at her hospital.
"One night," she said in testimony entered into the Congressional Record, "a nursing co-worker was taking an aborted Down's Syndrome baby who was born alive to our Soiled Utility Room because his parents did not want to hold him, and she did not have the time to hold him. I couldn't bear the thought of this suffering child lying alone in a Soiled Utility Room, so I cradled and rocked him for the 45 minutes that he lived."
In 2001, Illinois state Sen. Patrick O'Malley introduced three bills to help such babies. One required a second physician to be present at the abortion to determine if a surviving baby was viable. Another gave the parents or a public guardian the right to sue to protect the baby's rights. A third, almost identical to the federal Born Alive Infant Protection Act President Bush signed in 2002, simply said a "homo sapiens" 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.'"
Stanek testified about these bills in the Illinois Senate Judiciary Committee, where Obama served. She told me this week he was "unfazed" by her story of holding the baby who survived an induced labor abortion.
On the Illinois Senate floor, Obama was the only senator to speak against the baby-protecting bills. He voted "present" on each, effectively the same as a "no."
http://townhall.com/Columnists/TerenceJeffrey/2008/01/09/obama_is_the_most_pro-abortion_candidate_ever
