Obama should admit he was wrong on Born Alive

David Reinhard:

Who's really lying about abortion bill's language?

Ever wonder how Barack Obama, the great healer, ended up with a more radical record on abortion than Sen. Hillary Clinton or even the zealots at NARAL-Pro-Choice America? It comes down to the "Born-Alive Infant Protection Act." The bill was designed to provide legal protection for babies born alive during an abortion. Babies like the ones ex-nurse Jill Stanek saw discarded and left for dead at her hospital. The experience moved her to push for "Born Alive" legislation in Illinois, but Obama voted against the legislation -- three times.

Congress passed a federal "Born Alive" bill in 2002 without one opposing vote. Not even NARAL opposed the legislation, which President Bush signed into law with Stanek in attendance.

Why couldn't Obama, who talks about reaching across the aisle, find it in his heart to tiptoe onto this vast common ground to help the least among us? He's said since 2003 that he was all for "Born Alive" protection and that he would have voted for federal bill if he had been in Congress; the problem was that the Illinois legislation didn't include the federal act's "neutrality clause." This clause limited the protection to infants born alive. It was substantively pointless but politically critical provision, since it addressed abortion-rights advocates' fears that the act might undercut Roe v. Wade's abortion right. (Substantively pointless because the bill applies only to an infant born alive and not a fetus or baby in utero.)

Here's the problem with Obama's explanation: The National Right to Life Committee has unrefuted records from the Illinois Legislature that prove it has no basis in fact. State Senator Obama voted against a version of the act that contained a "neutrality clause" lifted from the federal legislation. In fact, as chairman of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, Obama voted to include it in the state legislation before joining the committee majority in killing the whole bill.

It's often said that it's not the crime, it's the coverup. Here, it's the crime and the coverup. Misrepresenting the reasons for a key vote is the coverup. Opposing efforts to help babies born alive in botched abortions is the crime -- enabling infanticide.

Obama said last weekend that determining where life begins is "above my pay grade." Surely, however, he recognizes the life of a baby born alive during an abortion is not above his pay grade. And yet he chose to kill a bill offering legal protection to these lives -- even when it included a provision that satisfied the most radical abortion-rights champions.

...

That last quoted paragraph should be a a question in the next debate. Obama's needs to quit fighting on this one. He should surrender and say he was wrong to oppose the Born Alive bill. If he does not he will have no chance with pro life voters and the pro choice side is going to be left to defend the indefensible.

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