It looks like the Democratic Party’s leadership has decided to make the Party’s fierce commitment to protecting abortion against meaningful legal restrictions of any kind and extending its availability a, if not the, central theme of its national convention.
I’ll leave to the pundits the question whether this is good politics. (I suppose it’s one way to avoid focusing on the state of the economy.) It is, however, a great sadness from the point of view of faithful Catholics and others who believe in the inherent and equal dignity and right to life of every member of the human family–from the child in the womb, to the mentally or physically handicapped individual, to the frail elderly person nearing death. The Democratic Party could once boast that it was the party that “looked out for the little guy.” No more. That will be clear when speaker after speaker at the podium proclaims abortion as a sacred right and virulently condemns those of us who stand up and speak out in defense of abortion’s tiny victims. I have pity for the dwindling band of pro-life Democrats who will sit in front of their television sets, or in the conventional hall itself, listening to the roars of approval as the presidents of Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America, among many others, deliver their carefully crafted applause lines.
The spectacle will, of course, reflect the position and strategy of the Obama-Biden ticket, and reinforce for those of us who are pro-life the points I made in 2008 in “Obama’s Abortion Extremism” and (with Yuval Levin) “Obama and Infanticide.”
August 22nd, 2012 | 1:22 pm
I understand that the “Democrats for Life” will be holding their national convention in a broom closet.
August 22nd, 2012 | 1:29 pm
They might not even have to remove the brooms.
August 22nd, 2012 | 3:26 pm
I don’t see any side in this debate offering any compromises. So, chiding only one side for intransigence seems like… hmmm… I just saw an article about that somewhere…
August 22nd, 2012 | 3:55 pm
Will the Nuns on the Bus, and Sr. Simone in particular, be protesting outside the convention in the name of social justice?
August 22nd, 2012 | 4:21 pm
Certain issues, like abolishing slavery, or stopping genocide, or protecting innocent life, are not issues upon which a principled person would compromise. Would it have been best if Lincoln struck a compromise on slavery? Or if FDR and Churchill struck a deal with Hitler to allow him his sphere of influence? Cutting a deal while sacrificing the lives of others is an act of moral cowardice.
August 22nd, 2012 | 5:04 pm
Political over-reach is a frequent occurrence.
August 22nd, 2012 | 6:04 pm
I remember back at the time of the election trying to wade through all the political spin from both sides about the Born Alive Infant Protection Act and how it all finally came together clearly with Robert George’s lucid explanation in “Obama and Infanticide.” I was up late the night before the election arguing about this and George’s essay made it clear to my friend how Obama had lied about this act but nevertheless he got up and voted for Obama the next day. I remember the weight of this subject becoming apparent at the time. It was an issue of infanticide and the American people were looking the other way. George’s essays on this are the clearest I know. His co-authored book Embryo is a powerfully reasoned, lucid exposition of pro-life philosophy.
August 22nd, 2012 | 7:00 pm
Not to wade into a recent firestorm topic, but one might take the view that the Republican Party’s platform plank calling for a prohibition on abortion except in cases of rape and incest is a “compromise” of sorts. On the one hand, the baby thus conceived is as innocent as any other and surely as deserving of the law’s protection; on the other, many people on a primal level do sympathize with the desire to destroy the rapist’s child, as they would sympathize with the desire to destroy the rapist.
Of course, it’s all pie in the sky while we live under the regime of Roe v. Wade and the conscience of Anthony Kennedy. Hard to compromise when you’ve got nothing to give up.
August 22nd, 2012 | 7:00 pm
[...] The Coming Pro-Abortion Spectacle in Charlotte – Rob. P. George DPhil, FT/Frst Thghts [...]
August 22nd, 2012 | 9:49 pm
Publius – You’re kind of proving my point.
I’m not saying anything one way or another about whether compromise is desirable or even possible.
But it’s hypocritical, or at least inconsistent, to castigate an opponent for being unwilling to compromise if you’re up front about not offering a compromise or accepting one if it were offered.
‘They’re pig-headed and uncompromising, you’re stubborn, and I’m committed to my principles.’
August 23rd, 2012 | 6:52 am
Ray,
And you missed my point, which is that some issues are not subject to compromise — what would have been an acceptable compromise on slavery?
August 23rd, 2012 | 7:17 am
Regarding Obama and Infanticide by Robert P. George and Yuval Levin, there is a great deal in the article that does not stand up to scrutiny.
Let’s begin here:
But it had not become clear. The allegations of the mistreatment of born-alive infants to which George and Levin allude are those made by Jill Stanek against Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois. Those allegations were investigated by the Illinois Department of Public Health, which was unable to corroborate them. Some who would like to indict Obama for supporting infanticide argue that Ms. Stanek’s allegations were true and that the pro-life attorney general, Jim Ryan, and the Illinois Department of Public health were powerless to intervene. George and Levin say:
After doing a great deal of research, I have come to the conclusion that the alleged statement by Attorney General Jim Ryan about the inadequacy of existing law is almost certainly a myth. It is referred to probably hundreds of times on sites indicting Obama for allegedly approving infanticide, but the statement is never quoted. I believe no such statement was ever made by Jim Ryan. I am more than willing to be corrected on this point, but I want solid evidence of the statement itself, not a mere assertion that such a statement was made.
Eric Zorn of the Chicago Tribune, in a published e-mail to Jill Stanek, refutes what the alleged Ryan statement is supposed to have said. The Attorney General’s office would not have been powerless to act if the allegations against Christ Hospital had been corroborated. What was alleged against Christ Hospital, had it actually happened and been proven to be true, would have been illegal:
George and Levin continue:
It should be noted that the Born Alive Infant Protection Act that Obama opposed did not specify any standard of care for infants born alive as the result of an abortion or any other cause. It merely defined any such infant as a person:
As I have noted in another thread, here is what the American Academy of Pediatrics says on the subject of the federal bill:
Clearly, the Born Alive Infant Protection Act did not even address the issue that was before the Illinois State Senate—the alleged mistreatment of pre-viable, born alive infants.
There are other errors of fact and misinterpretations in the George-Levin article, and although it is extremely time consuming to fact check such a piece, I hope to continue an analysis of the article shortly.
August 23rd, 2012 | 9:21 am
I cannot think of another industry which is as unregulated, subsidized and upheld by our government to the extent the abortion industry is. If they put half the energy into, say, protecting what is left of American manufacturing, we could probably save 100′s of jobs annually.
How did this industry and its lobby become among the MOST POWERFUL organizations within the Democratic party?
Catholics simply cannot be Democrats anymore. Become unaffiliated, because today abortion and other related issues are the sine qua non of the party.
August 23rd, 2012 | 9:37 am
what would have been an acceptable compromise on slavery?
publius,
Not to justify slavery at all, but if you look at the history of the United States from the writing of the Constitution to the Civil War, good and decent people made one compromise after another on slavery (3/5ths rule in the Constitution, Missouri Compromise, Compromise of 1850, etc). Thomas Aquinas famously wrote that prostitution should be tolerated lest, by suppressing it, greater evil would arise.
August 23rd, 2012 | 10:02 am
Publius: Lincoln did compromise. He freed only slaves in states in rebellion leaving those in loyal border states still slaves. Sometimes the road is difficult
August 23rd, 2012 | 11:01 am
[...] The Coming Pro-Abortion Spectacle in Charlotte Robert George, First Things It looks like the Democratic Party’s leadership has decided to make the Party’s fierce commitment to protecting abortion against meaningful legal restrictions of any kind and extending its availability a, if not the, central theme of its national convention. [...]
August 23rd, 2012 | 11:16 am
But these were compromises on the road to eventual complete eradication.
On the Born Alive Act – the purpose was to require medical attention to human beings born alive, not to set the medical standard of care for that situation. Most laws regarding medical care are exactly the same – the law requires the care, but the medical standard is obviously left to the medical community to set. Thus, you have EMTALA (anti-patient dumping), a federal law requiring that emergency care be provided to persons presenting in an ER until in a stable condition, regardless of ability to pay. But it does not state what the particular standard of care is for ERs. Even if “patient dumping” never happened, the purpose of the law was to make it illegal if it ever did, not to set a particular standard of care for Emergency medicine.
Thus, the point in the article was that the O could not even bring himself to vote in favor of such a law, regardless of whether or not the alleged mistreatment occurred. That obviously says something about the O.
August 23rd, 2012 | 12:01 pm
Wills,
In the end Lincoln did not compromise. What you say is true about the Emancipation Proclamation, but Lincoln knew the Proclamation had to be followed by a constitutional amendment. Lincoln pushed for the adoption of the 13th amendment, abolishing slavery.
August 23rd, 2012 | 12:01 pm
On the Born Alive Act – the purpose was to require medical attention to human beings born alive, not to set the medical standard of care for that situation.
c matt,
But BAIPA didn’t require “medical attention” to pre-viable infants born alive. It wouldn’t be at all difficult to write such a bill, and Obama said they could have compromised and done so, but BAIPA merely decreed that the word “person” in all existing laws and regulations was to be interpreted to include a born-alive infant.
August 23rd, 2012 | 12:56 pm
Under the old law of succession, a child was considered “born alive,” for the purposes of inheritance, if it was heard to cry, otherwise, it was regarded as still-born.
A case occurred in France not that long ago, where a man left a son by his first marriage and a daughter by his second and current marriage. A posthumous son was born prematurely and died within minutes, but he did draw breath. As a result, the father’s estate (subject to the widow’s usufruct) went to him, his sister and his half-brother in equal shares and his estate (the one-third of his father’s estate) was inherited by his sister, for the whole blood takes before the half-blood.
It is difficult to argue that someone who can inherit is not a “person.”
August 23rd, 2012 | 1:37 pm
I’m not an attorney and not as familar with all the legal nuances that David Nickol is arguing, but it seems to me that from a legal perspective, it is the application of the term “person” that grants all rights and privileges under the law. Therefore, if the term “person” is given to a human being that is born alive after an attempted abortion, then the standards that are in place for medical care for any person would then take effect. From my perspective it seem that by not wanting to grant “personhood” to these children, Obama was in effect voting that no basic medical care should even be considered since they were the “product” of a botched abortion.
As a human being, a “person” and a Catholic, I find these legal distinctions to be completely repugnant. These distinctions were used to justify slavery and now abortion. Both of these are evil and immoral and therefore, if it is the “distinctions” that make them possible then we need to do away with the distinctions! Any “human being” ought to be considered a “person”!
In Roe v Wade, the Supreme Court basically stated that if we could determine when “personhood” started, then we would have to grant that person all the rights that our constitution affords. Rights theory states that if we are in doubt as to whether or not to take someone’s rights away, we need to protect the right (our legal system is based on this – “innocent until proven guilty…”). Unfortunately, the Court did not protect the right and we are where we are today – arguing whether a human being in the womb is a person! Seems like a sick distinction to me.
August 23rd, 2012 | 1:41 pm
Thus, the point in the article was that the O could not even bring himself to vote in favor of such a law, regardless of whether or not the alleged mistreatment occurred. That obviously says something about the O.
c matt,
I almost forgot to make the most important point. George and Levin say:
I am saying this is untrue. Please note that in my message above of August 23rd, 2012 | 7:17 am, I quote Illinois Department of Public Health spokesman Tom Shafer saying the allegations made by Jill Stanek “were violations of existing law. We took (the allegations) very seriously.” It was not the case that the allegations were found to be true but the law was inadequate to deal with them. The allegations were investigated and the report of the investigation stated, “The allegation that infants were allowed to expire in a utility room could not be substantiated (and) all staff interviewed denied that any infant was ever left alone.” George and Levin say, “That is why the Born Alive Act was necessary—and everybody knew it.” (Talk about argumentum ad populum!) But the Born Alive Act was not necessary.
Think about it for a moment. Attorney Jim Ryan was pro-life. Do you suppose a pro-life Attorney General who is informed that hospitals in his jurisdiction are mistreating born-alive infants shamefully would sit back and say, “I really wish I could do something, but my hands are tied”? Is that plausible? I don’t think so, and I have found no evidence that Jim Ryan ever claimed the law was inadequate and such behavior was illegal. Where is the evidence Ryan made this statement?
August 23rd, 2012 | 2:08 pm
Therefore, if the term “person” is given to a human being that is born alive after an attempted abortion, then the standards that are in place for medical care for any person would then take effect.
Jenny,
It is a little more complicated than that. BAIPA did not exactly declare a born-alive infant a person. Rather, it (in this case, the federal version) said:
Assuming the best intentions on the part of promoters of BAIPA, it must mean that one or more Acts of Congress, rulings, regulations, or interpretations of the various administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States would have in it one or more of the words persons, human beings, child, or individual, and with the passage of BAIPA would then have to be interpreted to apply to a pre-viable born-alive infant. But what laws, rulings, regulations, etc. were those? Why not name them? And where is the evidence that since any of the BAIPA bills have been passed, a law has been enforced in the case of a born-alive infant that could not have been enforced prior to passage of the BAIPA? To put it briefly, what specifically was BAIPA supposed to do legally to help born-alive infants, and what has it done?
From my perspective it seem that by not wanting to grant “personhood” to these children, Obama was in effect voting that no basic medical care should even be considered since they were the “product” of a botched abortion.
Except remember that Obama expressed a willingness to write a bill that actually specified appropriate treatment of born-alive infants, which BAIPA did not do.
Why did they not simply write a law that said, “In cases where a child is born alive, at any stage, every reasonable medical effort must be made to save its life if that is feasible, and if not, it must receive appropriate comfort care”? If Obama had voted against that, there would be ample grounds to blame him for being inhumane. But that isn’t even remotely what BAIPA did.
August 23rd, 2012 | 2:42 pm
I used to be a Democrat. Then I was a “prolife Democrat.” Then I tried to be a “Democrat for Life.” During my early Democrat days I was not pro-life — I thought of abortion, if I thought of it at all, as a sad but sometimes necessary thing. But as I began to actually think about it, and even before I came to the pro-life viewpoint, I became more and more uncomfortable with the party’s lack of tolerance for its own pro-life members. By the last convention I no longer considered myself even a “sort of” Democrat, but I did think well of some pro-life Democrats and the attempt at “Democrats for Life.” But Casey’s revolting speech at that revolting convention — groveling before hypocrites who deigned to allow him to speak as long as he didn’t stand up for life — made me sick. And, as a constituent of Steve Driehaus’s (although I didn’t vote for him) I often called or emailed his office to support pro-life things. But when he and the rest of the “Stupak 13″ sold out on the healthcare bill, that was it. And do you know that he sued the Susan B. Anthony List (I believe the suit is still going on) for calling him a liar? Yeah, way to be a pro-life warrior — voting for the legislation that WILL lead to abortions being “free” and paid for by our tax dollars — and then suing someone who really does fight for life.
They are hoping to buy women’s votes by convincing them that Republicans hate them. I hope it doesn’t work but I’m afraid it will.
August 23rd, 2012 | 4:57 pm
Perhaps I am mistaken, Mr. Nichols, but I think you are missing the forest for the trees. I do not consider Mr. Obama inhumane for not voting for BAIPA. I consider him inhumane for pushing a very pro-abortion agenda that by all standards admits that the fetus in the womb is human. Thus, he is going against humanity, which in my book is “inhumane.” Furthermore, he wants to compel all Americans to help pay for these abortions despite many conscientious objections.
Additionally, he is trying to compel many “third world” countries (as did the Clintons in the Cairo Conference) to put in place “reproductive rights” that would force them to provide contraception and abortions by tying financial aid to whether or not they comply. In my book, he is thus pushing a very inhumane agenda around the globe and not just in our country.
August 23rd, 2012 | 5:02 pm
Publius: My point exactly. He did what he did in steps. And the establishment of the Civil War amendments was predicated on winning the war–not a certain thing at all at the time the Proclamation was issued. Politics can be very messy in accomplishing goals even with firm moral convictions. Of course than can be no compromise on abortion but given that the law of the land currently permits it, a stepwise approach to ending it is not entirely inappropriate, however much we would like it to be instantly reversed–and in that I stand shoulder to shoulder with you.
August 23rd, 2012 | 6:41 pm
Jenny,
I can’t argue with people who oppose Obama’s position and actions on abortion. I understand that. What I think makes no sense is to vilify him for opposing the Born Alive Infant Protection Act. A great deal of myth has built up around it that people accept as fact. But if you oppose Obama because he is the most pro-abortion president in history, I certainly can’t argue that he isn’t. It is possible, I think, to argue that a particular pro-life president’s policies won’t necessarily result in fewer abortions and a particular pro-choice president’s policies could possibly result in fewer abortions. But that is another discussion.
August 23rd, 2012 | 6:46 pm
David Nichols:
“It should be noted that the Born Alive Infant Protection Act that Obama opposed did not specify any standard of care for infants born alive as the result of an abortion or any other cause. It merely defined any such infant as a person:
In determining the meaning of any statute or of any rule, regulation, or interpretation of the various administrative agencies of this State, the words “person”, “human being”, “child”, and “individual” include every infant member of the species homo sapiens who is born alive at any stage of development.”
It should have been noted and should have alerted the American voter not to vote for a man who oppose humane treatment of babies, viable or not and God forbid a physician should complacently deem a viable infant unviable in the uncertain realm, no matter how much his customer wanted a dead result. The purpose of the Born Alive Infant Protection Act seems to me to intervene against strong ulterior motives of abortion doctors to see an infant dead so a poll of people who would indict themselves by acknowledging awareness of incidents in which they did not intervene does not seem to me a anything like what should be a final word on such a case. Jill Stanek’s pro life views doesn’t seem to me a convincing reason to dismiss her testimony though I would like to know her history better. Outrage and moral intransigence from witnessing infants treated that way would is one way to mature pro life views.
August 23rd, 2012 | 8:49 pm
“Clearly, the Born Alive Infant Protection Act did not even address the issue that was before the Illinois State Senate—the alleged mistreatment of pre-viable, born alive infants.”
That is not how then Senator Obama understood it, or claimed to understand it, it seems to me:
“There was a bill that was put forward before the Illinois Senate that said you have to provide lifesaving treatment…” Clearly Obama claimed that the bill did address the issue but that it was 1) redundant and 2) that it smuggled in a pro life definition of life.
Even if one was not able to find documentation of the attorney general’s statement, that would hardly answer the question whether it was in fact true that “the 1975 law was inadequate. It only protected ‘viable’ infants-and left the determination of viability up to the ‘medical judgment’ of the abortionist who had just failed to kill the baby in the womb. ”
Even if you somehow showed all claims of hospital infanticide of children under the loving care of an embarrassed abortion doctor who had failed to abort them was untrue it seems that humanistic principle and knowledge of human nature would consider such a law a reasonable and necessary safeguard. Matt c makes this point and others succinctly.
“Therefore, Obama chose to defend the widest possible scope for legal abortion by building a fence around it, even if that meant permitting a child who survives an abortion to be left to die without even being afforded basic comfort care.”
This seems clear. David Nichols, what was the true reason for Obama opposing the Born Alive Infant Protection Act with the neutrality clause, since it could not be the reason Obama gave, that there was no neutrality clause?
David Nichols: “…Obama said they could have compromised and done so, but BAIPA merely decreed that the word ‘person’ in all existing laws and regulations was to be interpreted to include a born-alive infant.”
Do you object to calling a born alive infant a person and ascribing to him these protections? If not, how do you and Obama justify such a position? Obama’s claim that he was defending against a definition with bearing on extant abortion laws is refuted by George but you seem to want to revive that without addressing the neutrality clause.
August 23rd, 2012 | 10:02 pm
Wills, thanks for the clarification. Much appreciated and well put….
August 23rd, 2012 | 10:28 pm
It should have been noted and should have alerted the American voter not to vote for a man who oppose humane treatment of babies, viable or not . . .
David Alexander,
My point is that Obama did not oppose humane treatment of babies. As I have said a number of times, he expressed a willingness to craft a bill that would have addressed how born-alive infants were to be cared for. BAIPA did not mandate humane treatment for born-alive infants. It classified them as persons.
Jill Stanek’s pro life views doesn’t seem to me a convincing reason to dismiss her testimony though I would like to know her history better.
The allegations in Jill Stanek’s testimony were investigated by the Illinois Department of Public Health, and they could find no evidence to corroborate them. I do not know whether Obama doubted her testimony. It really makes no difference in judging Obama’s vote. BAIPA did not address Stanek’s allegations.
August 24th, 2012 | 12:28 am
David,
I think Jill Stanek has a pretty good reply to Eric Zorn in the part you quoted. Here it is:
“You’ll note the Illinois Department of Public Health investigator you spoke with didn’t deny babies are being aborted alive at Christ Hospital.
He merely denied these babies were shelved in the soiled utility room or left elsewhere alone to die. Whoop-ti-do.
So why did Christ Hospital create its “Comfort Room” right after the IDPH visit, the place they now take these babies to die?
Where did they put them before December 2000?
Also note that although Mr. Shafer told you, “We took (the allegations) very seriously,” and said the IDPH interviewed staff, the two people you’d think they’d most be interested in speaking with – Allison Baker and myself (who both testified about Christ Hospital’s abortion practices before the U.S. House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution) – were never approached.
Does that sound like a thorough investigation to you?
Also note Christ Hospital never sued either of us for making false accusations. To this day, it hasn’t, even though I’m still talking about it around the country.
Why?
Because we told the truth. Perhaps the IDPH couldn’t find people who knew what was going on there, but I know their names.”
Eric Zorn does not respond. These two women gave pretty detailed accounts of what they witnessed. I suppose it’s possible that they made things up, or greatly exaggerated what they saw, but I doubt it. The House subcommittee that heard their testimony found it credible enough that the Federal version of BAIPA sailed through committee, and in fact, the bill itself sailed through Congress. If there was no evidence at all that this bill was in response to anything tangible, I seriously doubt people like Barbara Boxer would have voted for it.
As for your contention that there is no evidence that Attorney General Ryan stated that his hands were tied, there is a letter in one of links that you provided from his office to the President of Concerned Women for America. Here it is:
http://www.cwfa.org/images/content/bornaliveagletter.pdf
The thing is, the letter is not clear to me about why they could not pursue legal action. Was it because what was witnessed did not violate then-existing legal statutes, as pro-lifers claim? Or is it because there was not enough evidence that what was claimed by Stanek took place to press charges (as you are claiming)?
August 24th, 2012 | 8:39 am
David Nickol, if you can not agree first that an infant is a person, there seems little foundation for proceeding from there to discuss procedural protections. Hypothetically, I suppose a coalition could be formed between someone who regarded a child to have the moral equivalence of a pig, but who avidly believed in the humane treatment of pigs, and someone who valued children as human beings but it seems to me the allegiance would be a shaky thing and there is just something deeply troubling it seems to me with the idea of cooperating with such a low view of infants. Basically, it seems to me as many excellent commentators have said here, that Obama wants to refuse to call infants human beings.
August 24th, 2012 | 3:06 pm
David Alexander and Tim,
My purpose in writing in this thread has been to show there are serious problems in Robert George and Yuval Levin’s piece “Obama and Infanticide.” It would be a huge undertaking to cover everything that has been done and said in the Illinois Legislature and the various political campaigns that followed. That is not what I am trying to do. I am pointing out that it was not “clear” that born-alive infants were mistreated in Christ Hospital. I am also pointing out that an alleged statement by Attorney General Ryan which figures very prominently in George and Levin’s piece seems never to have been made. I am pointing out that a statement like the following has no place in civil, rational discourse: “That is why the Born Alive Act was necessary—and everybody knew it.” It is very difficult to google “Born Alive Infant Protection Act” and get anything other than denunciations (with an occasional defense) of Obama, so I can’t be sure of this. But I believe Illinois did eventually pass a version of the bill, and of course, a federal version was passed in 2002. But I believe the only other state to pass a version was South Carolina earlier this year. If BAIPA was necessary, and everybody knew it, where are the other state versions?
It is extremely time consuming to critique an article like this, so I am going to mention one more significant problem and let it go at that. George and Levin give a quote from Obama that begins, “As I understand it, this puts the burden on the attending physician . . . ” That is not from a discussion of the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, but rather a bill considered in the same session titled the Induced Birth Infants Liability Act. It is extremely misleading to quote Obama’s statement on that bill without making it clear that it refers to a different bill with a completely different set of issues.
August 24th, 2012 | 7:44 pm
“My purpose in writing in this thread has been to show there are serious problems in Robert George and Yuval Levin’s piece “Obama and Infanticide.”
The biggest problem with the article is that nobody cares, except the authors and few others.
The two parties are involved in a political election that will turn on three things only:
(1) The ecomony; (2) the ecomony; and (3) the economy.
Abortion is not a significant issue in presidential elections for 80% of the American voters.
The other 20% are split about evenly between extreme factions.
August 25th, 2012 | 8:32 pm
David Nickols,
In Eric Zorn’s summary about BAIPA, he mentions the following about the Illinois Abortion Law of 1975:
“Prosecutors in Illinois entered into a consent decree in 1993 agreeing not to prosecute doctors for apparent or alleged violations of this law based on “born alive” definitions and other definitions (see the links below).” That seems to me to be evidence supporting the contention that the reality was you could not prosecute the cases raised by Stanek under that law, especially because of questions about definitions, regardless of what the attorney general did or did not say.
David Nichols: “As I understand it, this puts the burden on the attending physician . . . ” That is not from a discussion of the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, but rather a bill considered in the same session titled the Induced Birth Infants Liability Act. It is extremely misleading to quote Obama’s statement on that bill without making it clear that it refers to a different bill with a completely different set of issues.”
Induced Birth Infants Liability Act was the companion bill to the Born Alive Infant Protection Act and depended on definitions in this later act for its solvency so it is misleading of you, rather, to say that this is extremely misleading and to imply that this second bill was completely unrelated. Eric Zorn does not scruple to make a distinction between these two as being of import but simply writes in preface to the quote: “Here’s some of what Obama said on April 4, 2002 during floor debate in the Illinois Senate.” Is Zorn also ‘extremely misleading’ and an unreliable source on this?
Link to Eric Zorn’s article: http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2008/08/bornalive.html
August 25th, 2012 | 9:51 pm
“The biggest problem with the article is that nobody cares, except the authors and few others.”
Why should the authors care about the polls? Should a person take his moral compass from opinion polls and flagellate himself if he falls into an extreme? Shouldn’t one rather weep and gnash his teeth for finding himself fallen into company with those indifferent to infanticide?
August 26th, 2012 | 8:48 pm
“Should a person take his moral compass from opinion polls and flagellate himself if he falls into an extreme? Shouldn’t one rather weep and gnash his teeth for finding himself fallen into company with those indifferent to infanticide?”
Politically irrelevant people have a wide latitude of options, including teeth gnashing. If, however, you want to have any influence in politics, you may want really examine the opinion polls and figure out what is possible and what is not possible.
The nearly uniform negative reaction to Akin’s comments is worth a serious thought or two.
August 27th, 2012 | 9:24 am
Polls should have no influence on one’s views of abortion or infanticide nor does a callous indifference undermine the rightness of addressing this. Crucifixtion is about the ultimate political defeat but where is the Roman Empire now compared to Christ? As Douglas Harink writes, “We are suspicious of apocalyptic alarmists (such as Peter) who, wild-eyed, interrupt the smooth flow of life and call attention to the brutality of the ordinary.”
August 27th, 2012 | 10:53 am
That seems to me to be evidence supporting the contention that the reality was you could not prosecute the cases raised by Stanek under that law, especially because of questions about definitions, regardless of what the attorney general did or did not say.
David Alexander,
You don’t seem to be taking into account further comments about the consent decree on the same web page:
The allegations against Christ Hospital were investigated and could not be substantiated. Consequently, the government had no evidence of wrongdoing and could not have prosecuted. Under the circumstances, it would have been extremely unlikely that the Attorney General would have said the law didn’t allow him to prosecute. What would he have prosecuted? Would a state attorney general say, “There have been some allegations against Christ Hospital. We have investigated them and couldn’t verify that they were true. But, you know, even if we could prove they were true, there is nothing I could do about them. I, your pro-life attorney general, am powerless to act when hospitals mistreat born-alive infants.” The fact of the matter is that Ryan did not make any statement at all about the allegations against Christ Hospital. The Ryan statement is an anti-Obama urban legend. And furthermore, a spokesperson for the Illinois Department of Public Health did say the alleged (but unsubstantiated) mistreatment of born-alive infants at Christ Hospital would indeed have been illegal had it occurred.
However much you want it to be the case that born-alive infants were being mistreated in Chicago, and Obama blocked the government from being able to do anything about it, it is simply not true.
August 27th, 2012 | 8:17 pm
I, as a Christian, have learned that I need to be on my face, everyday, in deep contrition, for my sins. God will not forgive those who flaunt sinfulness in His face. This includes anyone in the Democratic party, or anyone else, when, without any remorse, condones the right to life.
August 28th, 2012 | 11:08 pm
David Nickols,
I concede your correction about the prosecutors’ agreement. You also effectively raise a question about George’s reference to an alleged statement about the attorney general. However, regarding this and the point about the Christ’s Hospital investigation, it seems irrelevant where one stands on that particular investigation in judging Senator Obama’s opposition to BAIPA since in Obama’s oral argument he concedes it as a fact that born alive, non viable infants were not being given proper care and he does not argue against the bill on the grounds of redundancy.
Obama’s opposition to Senate bill 1093
-It is misleading to suggest this does not provide specific procedural controls.
- The Christ Hospital case was not being debated. Obama says about the prior debate in the Judiciary Committee that the fact came out that born alive children resulting from an induced abortion (which he begrudged to call children) were not being properly cared for ‘during the brief period of time that they were still living.’ Senator Obama asks if this is a key concern of the bill and Senator O’Malley confirms it is. Senator Obama does not argue that the children were not being taken care of properly but assumes it as a fact.
-Senator Obama expressly opposes the bill, not because of an understanding that it is redundant, nor that there are no abuses occurring, but because, he asserts, defining a ‘previable fetus’ (the term he uses to refer to a born alive child as previable child) as a human being would ’essentially bar abortions.’ Senator Obama specifically objects to placing a burden on a doctor to keep alive a previable child and give them as much medical attention as is needed to keep them alive. Senator O’Malley said the bill was to “clarify, resecure, and reaffirm the rights of a child born in America” which obviously was needed given the begrudgement of people like Obama to call a previable infant a human being.
I wish every American voter would read and reflect on Senator Obama’s words in his opposition to Senate bill 1093, found at this link on pages 84-90:
http://www.ilga.gov/senate/transcripts/strans92/ST033001.pdf
Your defense of Obama is partially that the case at Christ Hospital was not substantiated but that is not the expressed premise Obama goes on in his argument. However, questions were effectively raised by commentators on this thread about the investigation. Why were the two whistle blowers not approached by those investigating the allegations? I wonder too what one would expect to find in logs: “Left baby in soiled linen closet at 2:00 A.M.”?
You are an intelligent man. There’s no need to sully your arguments with an ad hominem insinuation at the end.
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