Michelle Obama Likely Won’t Mention Partial-Birth Abortion Okay at Convention
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
August 25, 2008
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — When she steps up to the podium to deliver tonight’s keynote address at the Democratic convention, Michelle Obama, wife of the pro-abortion presidential candidate Barack, probably won’t mention her opposition to a ban on partial-birth abortions. Yet, that’s what she stressed in a letter supporting her husband years ago.
Michelle Obama wrote a 2004 letter for her husband’s Senate campaign defending partial-birth abortions.
In February 2004, Michelle Obama penned a fundraising letter to help her husband Barack raise funds for his Illinois-based Senate seat.
The letter contends the federal ban on partial-birth abortions "is clearly unconstitutional" and "a flawed law" — though the Supreme Court would later say the measure is constitutionally valid.
Though the three-day-long partial-birth abortion procedure involves the partial birth of a baby during the middle trimester of pregnancy and the jamming of scissors into the back of her head to kill her, Obama’s wife describes it as "legitimate" medicine.
"The fact remains, with no provision to protect the heath of the mother, this ban on a legitimate medical procedure is clearly unconstitutional and must be overturned," Michelle Obama writes in the letter.
Obama describes a health exception, yet doctors and medical groups admit that a partial-birth abortion is never necessary to protect the health or life of the mother and Martin Haskell, the abortion practitioner who invented the procedure, says he used it 80 percent of the time on healthy mothers and healthy babies.
In the letter, Michelle Obama also said the Bush administration should not encourage the abortion practitioners who sued to reverse the ban to drop their lawsuit to make it unconstitutional.
In closing, Obama told prospective donors that they could "count on" Barack to "keep the Bush team from appointing the Supreme Court justice that will vote against Roe v. Wade."
Noted pro-life advocate Jill Stanek highlighted the letter on her blog and said Michelle was "leeching off the partial birth abortion ban" to raise funds for her husband.
"I’d like to ask Michelle to explain her legal opinion about this law the Supremes went on to declare constitutional," Stanek said. "I’d like to ask Michelle how in the world she could in good conscience raise money from fear-mongering about this barbaric abortion procedure."
During the convention speech, Obama will also not likely mention that she will be participating in a big fundraising shindig for pro-abortion groups.
Leading pro-abortion group Emily’s List will unite failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama for the Tuesday event.
The pairing of Clinton and Obama will be a means of raising funds for the presidential election — giving the leading pro-abortion group cash to bash John McCain.
But the event will have an emotional impact as well, since Emily’s List was squarely in Clinton’s corner during the primary and fought with the Obama camp before the junior senator clinched the nomination.
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