Planned Parenthood has been condemned for what many see as promoting infanticide — but its position is very similar to the one President Barack Obama had when he was an Illinois state senator.
The Planned Parenthood abortion business in Florida received national condemnation for its testimony during a committing hearing against a bill in the state legislature that would provide medical care and legal protection for babies who are born alive after failed abortions.
This is the same legislation President Barack Obama refused to support during his time in the Illinois legislature and it mirrors a national law President George W. Bush signed after nurse Jill Stanek exposed how her Chicago-area hospital left babies to die in utility closets after botched abortions.
In a blog post, Stanek breaks down the Florida bill further and compares the Planned Parenthood position with Obama’s:
Florida HB1129 defines the term “born alive” almost as the federal Born Alive Infants Protection Act of 2002 did. An amendment to HB1129 added the federal BAIPA’s “neutrality clause.”
But HB1129 went further than the federal BAIPA by adding, as the sponsor testified (beginning at 11:02) during the committee hearing:
1. Parity, that regardless of how a born alive infant entered the world – natural birth, c-section, or abortion – s/he shall be treated with the same degree of professional skill, care, and diligence. The bill provided that a born alive baby would immediately be transported to a hospital.
2. “Infant born alive” becomes a reportable item.
3. Surrender – “A work in progress,” according to the sponsor. The bill’s language originally assumed the baby was not wanted, since the mother had just paid to have him or her killed, and should be immediately surrendered to the state. The sponsor said an amendment was being crafted for the unique circumstance when an abortion was necessary for the health of the mother, which meant mean she likely would still want the infant born alive and give it loving care.
It was into this bill language mix that PP lobbyist Alisa LaPolt Snow stepped in.
The problems PP had with the bill were providing care, transport, and surrender.
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The former two are problems state Sen. Barack Obama had with a separate companion bill (page 33) to Illinois’ Born Alive Infants Protection Act, which for all intents and purposes was saying the same thing, that medical care of abortion survivors was to be taken out of the hands of the doctor who had been paid to kill them:
[A]n additional doctor who then has to be called in an emergency situation to come in and make thee assessments is really designed simply to burden the original decision of the woman and the physician to induce labor and perform an abortion….
Obama agreed with Snow that, regarding the care of abortion survivor, as Snow testified, “any decision that’s made should be left up to the woman, her family, and the physician.”
Snow was simply less artful than Obama. Plus, Obama had and still has the public and media snowed, as the Washington Post’s Josh Hicks demonstrated:
Granted, we don’t know why Obama voted against the 2003 bill that included a clause to protect abortion rights…. Nonetheless, we find it hard to fathom that the former senator expressed a belief that human life is disposable outside the womb.
The pro-life bill, HB1129, measure ultimately cleared the House Criminal justice Subcommittee. The bill would require that medical care be given to newborns, likely to be premature, who survive botched abortions. The care would be given at a hospital and not at the abortion clinic.
