Barack Obama Campaign Changes Its Story on Abortion-Infanticide Votes

National   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Aug 18, 2008   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

Barack Obama Campaign Changes Its Story on Abortion-Infanticide Votes

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
August 18
, 2008

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — The Barack Obama campaign is changing its story again about why the pro-abortion presidential candidate voted against a bill that would have required adequate medical care for babies who survive botched abortions. The infanticide bill has dogged Obama throughout the campaign.

In previous attempts at dismissing the criticism, Obama himself has said he voted against the bill because it supposedly would have violated Roe v. Wade and trumped legal abortions.

Next, the Obama campaign said Obama would have voted for the bill if an amendment would have been adopted making the measure Roe neutral. When the National Right to Life Committee exposed that argument by showing Obama voted for such an amendment and then opposed the bill, Obama called NRLC officials liars.

In a late Sunday news story, the New York Sun indicates the Obama campaign has changed its story again.

Now, the Obama camp acknowledges he voted against an identical bill in the Illinois Senate to the federal version he said he would have supported.

Spokesman Hari Sevugan told the Sun that, even with the Roe-neutral amendment Obama has said for four years would have made the bill worthy of his support, he still had concerns that the bill would have undermined Illinois abortion law.

Douglas Johnson, the legislative director for National Right to Life, told LifeNews.com that the new explanation contradicts everything Obama has said since then as well as his stated reasons at the time for opposing the anti-infanticide bill.

"Given the language of the final state bill, this claim is absurd, unless Obama believed that ‘existing Illinois abortion law allowed for ‘abortions’ to be carried to a lethal conclusion even after a live birth," he said.

"The newest line is also not consistent with Obama’s oft-stated excuse for opposing the state legislation, and fails to explain his four years of misrepresentation," Johnson added. "All of Obama’s misrepresentations and contradictions on this issue have one common goal: to obscure the position he actually articulated."

Johnson told LifeNews.com that the legislation had one purpose — to protect newborn infants who survived botched abortions or were purposefully born prematurely and left to die.

No matter how Obama or his campaign characterizes his vote against the bill, Johnson says the only conclusion is that Obama voted to support infanticide.

"And it is that reality that he now desperately wants to conceal from the eyes of the public," Johnson surmised.

Jill Stanek, the Chicago-area nurse who exposed the practice of leaving babies who survived abortions or born prematurely to die, also chimed in on the evolving story.

"Little did Obama know hiw own words would so quickly condemn him," he said.

"While the Obama campaign finally admitted Obama has misrepresented his Born Alive vote all these years, it had the audacity to offer a ludicrous excuse — an excuse Obama himself contradicted only 24 hours ago," she said.

 

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