From Douglas Kmiec’s 2008 book Can a Catholic Support Him?:
So what does the ‘Born Alive’ Act do? Largely, it redefines what it means to be ‘born alive.’ From the time of ancient common law, ‘born alive’ has meant live birth at or near the end of a full term pregnancy with a reasonable prospect of survival. If a woman sadly miscarries earlier and expels a nonviable, but temporarily alive, unborn child with a transient heartbeat, there isn’t a county recorder in the country who would record a live birth. The miscarriage is sad enough; we don’t worsen it with the grief of death before life has meaningfully taken hold. But that’s what the ‘Born Alive’ Act does. For the most part, it redefines live birth to include nonviable unborns who lack any meaningful chance of survival. (pg. 65)
For Kmiec, certain children cannot even be said to have been born: their mothers unceremoniously “expel” them from their wombs. Like that, whatever our pay grade, we are deciding whether life has or has not “meaningfully taken hold”—and what counts as meaningful is up to us.
Four years ago, defending President Obama’s abortion record led a supposedly pro-life legal scholar to endorse the murder of living infants. Let’s hope things don’t go so far this time around.
August 21st, 2012 | 9:40 am
“For the most part, it redefines live birth to include nonviable unborns who lack any meaningful chance of survival”.
Does he not see the difference between “dying” and “getting killed”?
August 21st, 2012 | 10:29 am
If a woman sadly miscarries earlier and expels a nonviable, but temporarily alive, unborn child with a transient heartbeat, there isn’t a county recorder in the country who would record a live birth.
Actually, I think Kmiec is partly incorrect. Live birth was defined by the World Health Organization in 1950 as follows:
The definition of live birth in Illinois prior to the controversy over BAIPA, when Obama was a state senator, was as follows:
All states required reporting of live births.
This is what the Illinois Born Alive Infant Protection Act stated:
It did not change the definition of live birth.
August 21st, 2012 | 11:02 am
Matthew, did you see the word ‘nonviable’?
Abortion should not be allowed in cases where the being is viable, and that takes care of this fabricated problem.
August 21st, 2012 | 11:49 am
Maximilian (and Matthew) – As an example where the determination is inevitably “up to us”, is a fetus with anencephaly viable?
And what do we do if people come to different conclusions about such cases?
August 21st, 2012 | 12:06 pm
Those pictures are scary. I was talking about viability as the nth week of pregnancy, not about any particular abnormality. In this case, and I confess that I know very little about this disorder and therefore cannot render an infallible or even an informed judgment, the abnormality seems severe enough that abortion should be allowed in the third trimester.
If people have another conclusion? Let them make their case, I’ll gladly listen.
August 21st, 2012 | 12:11 pm
If a fetus is unviable, it will die. I don’t see why this means we should or can kill it, as if killing it is OK. Why not let an unviable fetus just die naturally? It is unnecessary to force scissors into its head or whatever the barbarians are doing these days.
And I wonder not only who gets to predict whether a particular life is or will be meaningful or not—I also wonder why life has to be “meaningful” according to the likes of us humans. Why can’t it just “be”?
August 21st, 2012 | 1:36 pm
If a fetus is unviable, it will die. I don’t see why this means we should or can kill it, as if killing it is OK. Why not let an unviable fetus just die naturally? It is unnecessary to force scissors into its head or whatever the barbarians are doing these days.
Peg,
Nobody, and certainly not Obama, was defending the deliberate killing of a born-alive infant, viable or non-viable. And the Born Alive Infant Protection Act did not mandate any standard of care for non-viable infants born alive. Nor was there any credible evidence at the time that non-viable born-alive infants were being deliberately killed.
I do blame Obama for resisting the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, but not because it prevented harm to infants. It simply didn’t. It basically did nothing. It was entirely symbolic. It didn’t change anything. I have been following this for years, and since the Illinois version and the federal version of the act have been passed, I have never found an instance where either law has been invoked. My own congressman, one of the most liberal, most vigilant defenders of abortion in the house, characterized it as a “belt and suspenders” approach, since in his opinion, it added nothing new to the law. That is why it passed so easily among abortion supporters in the house. Because it didn’t really mandate anything that was not already on the books.
August 21st, 2012 | 3:00 pm
David N.
An honest question. If there truly was “nothing at stake” with this law, why did President (then senator) Obama oppose it?
Was he ignorant of the the content of the law and it’s putatively (merely) gestural intent?
Or was he acting reflexively, based on an inviolable commitment to the absolutist logic of “choice”?
Is there another way to read his vote — as neither of those explanations would strike me as defensible, much less admirable, were I an Obama supporter.
August 21st, 2012 | 3:06 pm
Like that, whatever our pay grade, we are deciding whether life has or has not “meaningfully taken hold”—and what counts as meaningful is up to us.
This is a decision that is made every day in neonatal intensive care wards. Some infants are born alive so prematurely that there is no way to save them, and no effort is made. Others are born right near the dividing line, and their doctors and parents must make a decision if costly and heroic measures should be taken to attempt to try to save them. The Born Alive Infant Protection Act did not change this fact at all. It is still up to the discretion of physicians in consultation with parents to determine when to do everything medical science can come up with, and when to let the infant die naturally. No moral law requires futile medical care, and no scientific formula or test can say for certain in every case what is futile and what is not. This applies not just to premature infants, but to anyone hovering on the brink of life and death.
August 21st, 2012 | 3:43 pm
david c.,
That’s a good question. I think Obama saw this as yet another routine skirmish between pro-lifers pushing to get anything passed they could, and pro-choicers trying to keep them from doing so. It is only in retrospect that people look at this as some kind of monumental decision on Obama’s part. I am quite sure it didn’t seem so at the time, and as I have argued, it really wasn’t. I have read a great deal on this matter, including the transcripts of Obama’s own statements. They don’t strike me as particularly brilliant or insightful. But once again, I don’t think anyone in the legislature at the time, viewed this as some kind of historic test of the rights of the unborn. And the rights of the unborn were not at stake. Obama stated that he believe the law, if passed, would be declared unconstitutional. He also said—and this is very important—
The issue at hand was the alleged mistreatment (not deliberate killing) of pre-viable, born-alive infants. Obama expressed a willingness to deal with that specific issue. But the pro-life side pushed for a bill declaring a born-alive infant a person. Neither the Illinois bill nor the federal bill actually deals with the issue of appropriate care for pre-viable, born alive infants. Here is what the American Academy of Pediatrics says on the subject of the federal bill:
As I have argued numerous times, I can find no evidence that either the Illinois or federal BAIPA actually does anything as a law or is used in the enforcement of law. It was a minor matter then, and in actuality, it is still a minor matter, in that BAIPA does nothing to protect unborn infants that was not already in the law.
August 21st, 2012 | 4:18 pm
David Nickol,
Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t the law in question require a second physician to be involved? So the point isn’t about changing the standard of care, but about a procedural safeguard for the infant, so that the only person responsible for his or her care is not the very same person who was seeking to kill him or her a moment earlier.
Nor was there any credible evidence at the time that non-viable born-alive infants were being deliberately killed.
But there was testimony that non-viable born-alive infants (otherwise known as infants) were being left to die in inhumane and degrading conditions. Does that not deserve a modicum of concern?
August 21st, 2012 | 4:43 pm
Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t the law in question require a second physician to be involved?
Joe Z,
There were a number of laws being debated at the time as a kind of package, and Obama did object to the law involving a second physician. But the Born Alive Infant Protection Act that eventually got passed both in Illinois and at the federal level—the law Obama is so vilified for opposing—did not involve a second physician.
But there was testimony that non-viable born-alive infants (otherwise known as infants) were being left to die in inhumane and degrading conditions. Does that not deserve a modicum of concern?
There were allegations by Jill Stanek and another individual that infants in Christ Hospital, in Oak Lawn, Illinois, were mistreated. The Illinois Department of Public Health investigated those allegations and could not corroborate them. (There is an important point here. Some claim the IDPH investigated and concluded there was nothing they could do. That is, they investigated and found Stanek’s allegations to be true, but concluded the law was powerless to do anything about the mistreatment of non-viable, born-alive infants. However, in truth, IDPH was unable to verify that the events alleged by Stanek had actually occurred.) Exactly how much weight, one might ask, should legislators give to the uncorroborated allegations of two individuals? In any case, as I pointed out earlier, BAIPA did nothing to mandate better care for pre-viable born-alive infants. Obama in the transcript I quoted said they could have done so, but they chose to try to get born-alive infants called persons instead, thus not dealing with appropriate care for pre-viable, born alive persons.
August 21st, 2012 | 5:52 pm
Am I reading this right? Do the people in this section (and poor little Dougie Kmiec) really believe this law was about miscarriages? I do believe Barack Obama, as a State Senator, saw this as just another one of those struggles between pro-life and pro-abortion forces – struggles he believed to be completely resolved by Roe v. Wade (what a shock he received upon becoming President). This law, however insufficient it has been, was the response to what was not an uncommon occurrence – a live baby brought forth during an abortion. The methods of abortion for larger(older) babies, saline and hysterotomy, often produced a live baby and the medical personnel became more and more uncomfortable putting the baby in a bucket or sink where it would writhe, try to breathe, and even cry before dying. I know this was covered up for a long time, but is widely known now. What was the reason for the grisly practice of “partial-birth abortion”? Live babies make everyone uncomfortable when they are left to die, so doctors adopted the practice of taking the child a piece at a time or by removing the lower part of the child and drawing the head to the opening of the cervix. Before the head was removed from the womb, the doctor would take his scissors and stab (yes, stab) the base of the skull connecting to the neck. All struggling ceases, all the “products of conception” are out – and no one has to look or handle a live child. Sorry to be graphic, but if people still don’t know what abortion is after nearly fifty years of unrestricted practice, I’m not the one who should be apologizing. By the way, a baby’s “viability” should not be determined by our level of commitment to his/her care, as it currently is.
August 21st, 2012 | 7:00 pm
[...] Doug Kmiec’s Defense of Obama’s Born-Alive Vote – Mat. Schmitz, Frst Thng/Frst ThgtsXX [...]
August 22nd, 2012 | 12:19 am
Many Obama supporters strain mightily to make Obama’s outrageous record revealing his incredible callousness towards born alive infants who survive the abortion procedures – which, of course, happens frequently with ‘induced labor’ or ‘live-birth’ abortion – seem reasonable. It isn’t.
Here is a link to NRLC’s whitepaper Barack Obama’s Actions and Shifting Claims on the Protection
of Born-Alive Aborted Infants -– and What They Tell Us About His Thinking on Abortion:
http://www.nrlc.org/ObamaBAIPAWhitePaperAugust282008.html
Here is an excerpt:
August 22nd, 2012 | 6:36 am
So, if a child’s circumstances are tragic enough, it is “up to us” to decide if they get the death penalty? That is ludicrous. A tragic medical condition is not a crime. Is it “up to us” to decide that children in hospital burn units should simply be executed? Or do we do the very best we can for them? And we should do the very best we can for children with anencephaly, even if the best we can do is to make sure their short lives are filled all the love we can give them. It was the Nazis who decided the “humane” thing to do was to just kill people in tragic circumstances. See Dr. Henry Friedlander’s The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution. Friedlander, a Jew who from 1975 until his retirement in 2001 served as a professor in the department of Judaic studies at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, explores in astonishing detail how the Nazi program of exterminating the handicapped and disabled evolved into state-sanctioned killing of innocent, perfectly healthy human beings on a massive scale. Their social experiment in state-approved “humane” killing proved to be a disaster; in fact, one could make the case that no social experiment in the history of the world provided more evidence that it was an evil and stupid idea. The only thing more evil and stupid is to launch that experiment again.
August 22nd, 2012 | 7:14 am
“This law, however insufficient it has been, was the response to what was not an uncommon occurrence – a live baby brought forth during an abortion”
Thank you, John Hinshaw. The president’s machine-like lawyerspeak was obscene and inhumane. He voted “present” (as was his wont) so as to not offend the barbarians with the scissors.
August 22nd, 2012 | 9:55 am
Am I reading this right? Do the people in this section (and poor little Dougie Kmiec) really believe this law was about miscarriages?
John Hinshaw,
Obviously the supporters of the law were opposed to abortion—although remember, this was not an anti-abortion bill—but the definition of born alive applied “regardless of whether the expulsion or extraction occurs as a result of natural or induced labor, cesarean section, or induced abortion.” So it was very much a bill about miscarriage. It would be difficult to assemble the statistics, but it seems to me quite likely that the number of born-alive infants resulting from abortion would be quite small, whereas the number resulting from miscarriage and premature birth would be comparatively large.
What was the reason for the grisly practice of “partial-birth abortion”? Live babies make everyone uncomfortable when they are left to die, so doctors adopted the practice . . . .
This is factually incorrect. The “partial-birth abortion” technique was not developed to assure the aborted baby would be born alive, nor are your descriptions correct.
Once again, BAIPA was not an anti-abortion bill. Had Obama voted for it, it would have prevented no abortions. As I have argued, in my opinion, it would have done nothing. The issue at hand was the treatment of born-alive infants. Obama expressed a willingness to write a bill that would have mandated appropriate care for such infants, but instead, the pro-life legislators pushed for BAIPA.
August 22nd, 2012 | 10:07 am
it led him to reflexively view the issue of babies born alive during abortions through the prism of his concept of Roe v. Wade, and worse, to conclude that a breathing, squirming, fully born pre-viable human baby is still covered by Roe v. Wade.
harry,
Anyone googling this topic can find perhaps thousands of statements like this, but that doesn’t mean they are true. This one is false and pernicious. I am not going to try to answer everything people drag up from Google searches, but please see Politifact on this one. They are evaluating a statement by Santorum in which he said, “Any child born prematurely, according to the president, in his own words, can be killed.” They don’t merely rate it False. They rate it Pants on Fire.
August 22nd, 2012 | 10:15 am
The president’s machine-like lawyerspeak was obscene and inhumane. He voted “present” (as was his wont) so as to not offend the barbarians with the scissors.
Peg,
We all know that many pro-lifers hate the president for his stand supporting abortion, and there is no denying he is a strong supporter. However, the issue here is the Born Alive Infant Protection Act and whether he should have supported it or not. As I pointed out above, it was not an anti-abortion bill. As I further pointed out, the justification offered for the bill was the pre-viable born alive infants were being mistreated (allegations that were not proven). But the bill did nothing to specify appropriate care for born-alive infants. The bill, in fact, did nothing. I have been waiting years for anyone to point out a case where either the Illinois law or the federal law has actually come into play. No one has come up with an instance.
The topic is “Kmiec’s Defense of Obama’s Born-Alive Vote.” I am arguing that, no matter what you think of Obama and his stand on abortion, the vote was defensible.
August 22nd, 2012 | 10:58 am
One very much in love with “lawyerspeak” easily dismisses but never clarifies. The description of partial birth abortion (thus provided by only one participant in this discussion) are ENTIRELY accurate. The link provided was NPR Spin on the “political terms”, not the procedure. Allow me to clarify what was clearly misunderstood: partial birth abortion was a procedure developed to PREVENT a live baby coming out of the uterus during an abortion. Yes, I know, a legal scholar seeking to avoid the issue of live babies in operating rooms will see a connection to the World Health Organization definition of 1950. But my original point is that this law that Barack Obama (and Kmiec) see as so trivial was a response of Illinois in the 1990′s to live babies brought forth by abortion. No one was alleging lack of treatment or mistreatment of children miscarried by women who wanted them. What was eventually done with the live baby qualifies it as infanticide, but only people hiding behind legalese deny the connection to abortion here. Hiding behind legalese is a surpassing criticism of our current President and, once again, our scorned pro-life brothers and sisters saw the truth before the rest of us.
August 22nd, 2012 | 11:00 am
I knew to check out the NRLC’s position on such things without Google. The NRLC any myself were around before Google. They can’t afford to be sloppy about their claims, none of which you refute. (Is that because you can’t?) You just condemn the source. Name a source critical of Obama’s position on the treatment of born-alive infants that isn’t ‘false and pernicious’ according to you.
And, of course, you never use Google, right? Everything you cite you find by doing research at the local library, right? Yeah. Right.
August 22nd, 2012 | 12:01 pm
Allow me to clarify what was clearly misunderstood: partial birth abortion was a procedure developed to PREVENT a live baby coming out of the uterus during an abortion.
John Hinshaw,
First, this is irrelevant to the discussion, since BAIPA had nothing to do with permitting or prohibiting any type of abortion. It would be helpful to stick to the topic of the BAIPA and not turn this into a general discussion of abortion. However, just let me say that “partial-birth abortion” is not a medical term. It is a term invented by the pro-life movement. Intact dilation and extraction (D&X), which is generally what is called partial birth abortion, involves dilating the cervix and removing the fetus intact, but collapsing the skull so as not to damage the cervix. It was developed as an alternative to Dilation and evacuation (D&E), in which the cervix is dilated and the fetus is removed piece by piece. In neither procedure is it possible for the infant to be born alive.
But this has nothing to do with Obama’s vote on BAIPA.
August 22nd, 2012 | 1:29 pm
By isolating one issue after another relating to abortion (the true seamless garment) we again prevent clarity. I only drew in partial-birth abortion to highlight what a problem live babies (or Pof C’s or whatever lettering you prefer) resulting from abortions was in the 1990′s and, I suspect, even now. I repeat again, partial birth abortion was practiced to PREVENT a live baby coming out of the uterus during an abortion. By the way, I’m glad to see you’ve familiarized yourself on the stabbing, evacuation and crushing of the skull dine to keep a live baby from coming out. It seems people ( Kmiec, Obama, etc.) are working very hard to avoid talking about abortion here. It is like discussing property rights in 1859 Pennsylvania with all the backdrop of interstate commerce, taxation and states rights with an insistence we stay on point and not bring up the Fugitive Slave Act and personhod of the designated “property”. I get it, I’ve seen it before.
August 22nd, 2012 | 4:11 pm
John Hinshaw,
It is not necessary to discuss abortion when discussing Obama’s rejection of BAIPA. It was not an anti-abortion bill. If it had passed, it would have saved no lives. It was even written into the bill that it would not effect abortion It only dealt with what happened after an abortion. I am not interested in defending abortion here. I am interested in defending Obama’s decision to reject BAIPA. I am not interested in debating abortion, or Obama’s record on abortion, or whether or not Obama was consistent about what he said about BAIPA (he wasn’t). I am saying opposition to BAIPA was defensible.
August 22nd, 2012 | 5:29 pm
And, of course, you never use Google, right? Everything you cite you find by doing research at the local library, right? Yeah. Right.
harry,
No, use Google frequently to check your facts and uncover new ones. Just don’t use Google as a source to copy other people’s arguments, paste them here as blockquotes, and expect other people to spend hours doing research and fact checking to debunk them. Use Google to build your own arguments, not copy other people’s. Use Google to check and quote primary sources, and use it to quote authoritative sources and neutral third parties. But if the topic is abortion, don’t use Google to repeat arguments from NRLC or NARAL. Nobody who accepts NRLC as a source is going to accept NARAL, and vice versa. So as much as possible, stick to sources that will be reasonably credible to everyone, no matter which side.
August 22nd, 2012 | 6:42 pm
I am saying that the NRLC had it exactly right when they concluded that
That this is so is indicated by Obama’s remarks recorded in an transcript provided by the State of Illinois that is entitled:
STATE OF ILLINOIS
92ND GENERAL ASSEMBLY
REGULAR SESSION
SENATE TRANSCRIPT
The Illinois State Senate was dealing with a controversy brought about by induced labor abortions, where the premature birth is intentional, and, as in many premature births, the child is born alive. These infants were being left to die in hospital closets used for things like soiled linen instead of being taken to the newborn intensive care unit.
In the transcript, in opposition to legislation dealing with this controversy, State Senator Obama said:
So, according to Obama’s thinking, prematurely born babies, born alive due to induced labor abortions, are not protected by law; their being killed is, as the NRLC described Obama’s thought, “covered by Roe v. Wade.”
Obama goes on to say:
The fact that the fate of a born, wiggling, kicking baby, albeit premature, is under consideration apparently means nothing to Obama. He continues with:
Just how hard and cold Obama is, is revealed by the fact that he used the term “child” in reference to born alive, premature infants just after admitting that “the equal protection clause does not allow somebody to kill a child.”
Yes. The NRLC has it exactly right. Obama’s “commitment to defend the practice of abortion without qualification” is “absolute.”
The frightening thing is that there have been over 750,000 abortions in the U.S. since Roe that were done at 21 weeks or later. Babies are routinely cared for in newborn intensive care units at 21 weeks or later. So, children born prematurely due to induced labor abortions are “pre-viable” and handed over to medical professionals who think like Obama, and those born just as prematurely but wanted by Mom are rushed to the newborn intensive care unit.
August 23rd, 2012 | 12:44 am
Thanks for your thoughtful suggestions. You would love it if nobody ever quoted the NRLC, wouldn’t you?
And what Pro-Life group is it the arguments of which flaming abortion advocates don’t immediately scoff at?
The NRLC, as Pro-Life groups go, tends to be very cautious. Being the largest Pro-Life group, it is not like they don’t have enemies who would find their smallest, most innocent mistake in some insignificant detail and then portray it as a sinister plot to deceive the public. They do have enemies like that.
Thanks again for your advice, but I would be more impressed if you actually found some glaring falsehood in the NRLC whitepaper at the link I provided. You can’t do that, but you will suggest that whatever the NRLC has to say doesn’t really count. Well, you also suggested that whatever NARAL has to say is worthless, so you were half right, since Bernard Nathanson, former abortionist and Co-founder of NARAL, admitted that
August 23rd, 2012 | 6:53 am
harry,
I think your interpretation (and NRLC’s interpretation) of Obama’s reasoning is incorrect. Obama is not saying Roe v. Wade allows the mistreatment or deliberate killing of pre-viable, born alive infants. (Here, by the way, is a link to the complete transcript you quote from.) He is not arguing for the “right” of doctors to mistreat or deliberately kill a pre-viable born alive infant. He is arguing that the Born Alive Infant Protection Act would forbid all abortions because it would confer a right to life on all pre-viable infants (not just those born alive), and since Roe is based on the concept that pre-viable infants may be aborted, if you confer on them a right to life, it would be illegal to abort them.
Now, Obama was obviously wrong, since BAIPA has not been found unconstitutional and in no way is interpreted to limit abortion rights. But he is definitely not arguing against humane treatment of pre-viable, born-alive infants. In fact, he argues that they could have written a bill that actually dealt with the issue at hand:
Obama is not arguing in favor of allowing doctors to directly kill or mistreat a pre-viable born-alive infant. Remember, a pre-viable infant is one that by definition cannot survive. He is arguing that BAIPA would require doctors to try to save born-alive infants that by definition can’t be saved:
Now, as I noted above in quoting the American Pediatric Association, BAIPA actually says nothing at all about the kind of care that must be provided to a pre-viable born-alive infant. So Obama was over-interpreting the effects of the bill. But he was not arguing that Roe gave physicians the right to mistreat or deliberately kill pre-viable born-alive infants.
August 23rd, 2012 | 7:20 am
David,
As long as we’re on a tangent, then let me point out that while “partial-birth abortion” is a term invented by the pro-life movement, it also happens to be an accurate and informative signifier of what goes on in that procedure. More so than the medical term of intact dilation and extraction. After all, we are talking about an abortion procedure, and yet it’s possible to have an intact dilation and extraction without having an abortion. My sister had one when her twins died late in pregnancy from TTTS. Obviously she did not have an abortion.
When the Chicago Tribune editorial board debated what words to use in this debate, Don Wycliffe made the eminently reasonable point that if you are trying to accurately inform your readers about what is going on in this procedure, then “partial-birth abortion” is a perfectly legitimate term to use.
The press and the Supreme Court use non-medical terms all the time. “Stroke” and “heart attack” are not precise medical terms either. Yet you rarely find people objecting to these terms. I suspect that abortion-rights supporters preferred the term Intact D&X because it’s a sterilized formulation that does more to hide what is really happening behind technical-sounding jargon than it does to accurately convey what is happening.
August 23rd, 2012 | 9:53 am
Tim,
You make a perfectly fair point. There is hardly any hot-button issue where opposing sides attempt to use purely neutral language or plain, descriptive language. I will quibble just a little bit, in that doctors and others in the medical profession do tend to use clinical language when communicating with each other, and in doing so, I don’t think they can be accused of trying to hide the true nature of what they are doing. But sure, saying D&E or D&X is doesn’t make me cringe, while describing the procedures in detail or watching them being performed would be intensely disturbing.
August 23rd, 2012 | 4:26 pm
The problem was children being neglected, left to die in closets used for soiled linen.
Does anybody ever explicitly argue against humane treatment of children? It is only your straw man who claims politicians argue against humane treatment of children.
Yet if Mom wants a premature baby and it is taken to the newborn intensive care unit, the baby will often survive, in which case it turns out it wasn’t “pre-viable” after all.
He thought under Roe they weren’t “persons,” stating that
He objected to the bill because he mistakenly thought it ran counter to Roe, which he mistakenly thought allowed for the killing of “pre-viable” (which often only means Mom doesn’t want the child) born alive infants who survived the abortion procedure.
August 23rd, 2012 | 4:58 pm
David, check this out: Barak Obama the Abortion Extremist on the Politico web site, and remember, it this isn’t a piece created by the NRLC.
August 23rd, 2012 | 6:51 pm
. . . isn’t a piece created by the NRLC.
harry,
When Rich Lowry, editor of National Review, writes an opinion piece for Politico, that doesn’t render the piece any less biased than if it appeared in National Review. For all the logic in it, it might just as well have come from NRLC.
August 24th, 2012 | 2:46 pm
David, you will also enjoy this Weekly Standard piece: Audio: Obama Says “That Fetus or Child” Was “Just Not Coming Out Limp and Dead”
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