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.

He is not arguing for the “right” of doctors to mistreat or deliberately kill a pre-viable born alive infant.

The problem was children being neglected, left to die in closets used for soiled linen.

But he is definitely not arguing against humane treatment of pre-viable, born-alive infants.

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.

Remember, a pre-viable infant is one that by definition cannot survive.

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.

But he was not arguing that Roe gave physicians the right to mistreat or deliberately kill pre-viable born-alive infants.

He thought under Roe they weren’t “persons,” stating that

“… what we’re really saying is [the bill is saying], in fact, that they are persons that are entitled to the kinds of protections that would be provided to a — a child, a nine-month-old — child that was delivered to term.”

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.

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.

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.

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:

I think it’s important to recognize though that this is an area where potentially we might have compromised — and arrived at a bill that dealt with the narrow concerns about how a – a previable fetus or child was treated by a hospital. We decided not to do that. We’re going much further than that in this bill. As a consequence, I think that we will probably end up in court once again, as we often do, on this issue. As a consequence, I’ll be voting Present.

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:

And if we’re placing the burden on the doctor that says you have to keep alive even a previable child as long as possible and give them as much medical attention as – as is necessary to keep that child alive, then we’re probably crossing the line in terms of unconstitutionality.

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.

But if the topic is abortion, don’t use Google to repeat arguments from NRLC or NARAL …

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

We persuaded the media that the cause of permissive abortion was a liberal enlightened, sophisticated one. Knowing that if a true poll were taken, we would be soundly defeated, we simply fabricated the results of fictional polls. We announced to the media that we had taken polls and that 60% of Americans were in favor of permissive abortion. This is the tactic of the self-fulfilling lie. Few people care to be in the minority. We aroused enough sympathy to sell our program of permissive abortion by fabricating the number of illegal abortions done annually in the U.S. The actual figure was approaching 100,000 but the figure we gave to the media repeatedly was 1,000,000. Repeating the big lie often enough convinces the public. The number of women dying from illegal abortions was around 200-250 annually. The figure we constantly fed to the media was 10,000.

I am saying opposition to BAIPA was defensible.

I am saying that the NRLC had it exactly right when they concluded that

His [Obama's] commitment to defend the practice of abortion without qualification was so absolute that 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.

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:

“… what we’re really saying is [the bill is saying], in fact, that they are persons that are entitled to the kinds of protections that would be provided to a — a child, a nine-month-old — child that was delivered to term.”

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:

“That determination then, essentially, if it was accepted by a court, would forbid abortions to take place. I mean, it — it would essentially bar abortions, because the equal protection clause does not allow somebody to kill a child, and if this is a child, then this would be an antiabortion statute.”

The fact that the fate of a born, wiggling, kicking baby, albeit premature, is under consideration apparently means nothing to Obama. He continues with:

“… this essentially says that a doctor is required to provide treatment to a previable child, or fetus, however way you want to describe it.”

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.

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.