Pro-Life Advocate Responds to Obama Camp’s Gripes About Abortion Flack
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
August 20, 2008
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — Yesterday, the Obama campaign released the latest response to criticism from pro-life advocates about Obama’s repeated votes against a bill that would have protected unborn children who survive abortions. The enmity has been targeted at National Right to Life, which says Obama is still ducking the real issue.
As LifeNews.com reported, the Obama campaign called criticism of Obama’s votes against the Born Alive Infants Protection Act "offensive and insulting."
It repeated the same disproved arguments Obama has given about why he voted against giving adequate medical care to prematurely born newborns or babies who survive abortions.
But Douglas Johnson, the legislative director for National Right to Life, tells LifeNews.com that the Obama campaign is hoping to cover up the extremist position Obama took.
"Senator Obama’s manufactured indignation and continued misrepresentations of Illinois legislation have one common goal," he said.
Obama and his campaign hope to "obscure the reality that he opposed recognizing, as legally protected persons, babies who were born alive during abortions, during the fourth and fifth months of development."
"Because these babies were not yet ‘viable’ — that is, capable of long-term survival — Obama regarded them as non-persons under Roe v. Wade," Johnson explained.
Johnson said that, no matter how Obama or his campaign try to shape the debate on his votes, the fact remains that he did oppose a bill that was the same as the federal version and that he is out of step even with pro-abortion members of Congress who supported protecting the newborns.
"Legislation to repudiate that proposition passed the U.S. House 380-15 in 2000, and without dissenting vote in 2002, but in Illinois, Obama stuck to that extreme position," Johnson said. "That’s why he killed a copy of the federal law in the committee he chaired on March 13, 2003."
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