Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Voters should be troubled by Obama's abortion stance

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

Can we just listen to ourselves? We're debating whether some babies born alive have a right to medical attention.

How have we come to this? Can't we all agree that everyone whose heart beats, brain functions and lungs respire at birth should have a chance to live? If we're a compassionate, rational and just society, we would say, "Of course, every infant has a right to lifesaving medical attention. Even if it's not wanted."

But an unthinkable debate is raging as a part of the presidential campaign, centering on how Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama voted while he was an Illinois state senator on legislation designed to protect the lives and health of all newborns. The debate over Obama's voting record has grown so arcane that we've lost sight of why this question ever came up: Some infants that survive abortion are denied medical assistance. They are left to die.

Jill Stanek, a former nurse at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, described in 2001 during congressional testimony how it happens: In a "live-birth abortion," doctors "do not attempt to kill the baby in the uterus. The goal is simply to prematurely deliver a baby who dies during the birth process or soon afterward." Medication stimulates the cervix to open, allowing the baby to emerge, sometimes alive. "It is not uncommon for a live aborted baby to linger for an hour or two or even longer. At Christ Hospital, one . . . lived for almost an entire eight-hour shift." Some actually are born healthy because they are aborted to preserve the "health" of the mother, or because the pregnancy was due to rape or incest. At best, they are left in a "comfort room," complete with a camera (for pictures of the aborted baby) "baptismal supplies, gowns, and certificates, footprinting equipment and baby bracelets for mementos and a rocking chair," where they are rocked to death. "Before the comfort room was established," Stanek said, "babies were taken to the soiled utility room to die."

Yes, there ought to be a law against this, and Congress passed one unanimously. It declares that a person is defined as "every infant member of the species homo sapiens who is born alive at any stage of development." Born alive means any human being that after "expulsion or extraction" from the mother "breathes or has a beating heart, pulsation of the umbilical cord, or definite movement of voluntary muscles, regardless of whether the umbilical cord has been cut, and regardless of whether the expulsion or extraction occurs as a result of natural or induced labor, Caesarean section, or induced abortion."

Pretty simple, right?

Well, not really. Some people fear that this fundamental protection, ensuring to all the first of the rights of "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness," is in reality a sneak attack on a woman's right to choose an abortion. To prevent this "Trojan horse," they insisted, and got, in the federal law a guarantee against construing the law to "affirm, deny or contract any legal status or legal right applicable to any member of the species homo sapiens at any point prior to being 'born alive'. . ." This mumbo jumbo is supposed to mean that abortions can't be restricted.

To mollify pro-choice concerns, including Obama's, this was inserted in several versions of the Illinois legislation. But it didn't matter, because the legislation died anyway, with Obama's help. Whether or not he refused to vote for a version that contained the right-to-an-abortion provision isn't what's important here. What is important is that Obama put the supposed and vague threat to an abortion right ahead of a real and concrete threat to the most innocent of human lives.

Obama's response to all this is to sidestep any discussion about when human personhood begins, the key question in the abortion debate. Some say it begins at the moment of conception; others say it begins at birth. (Still others look for a middle ground, suggesting it begins when brain activity starts.) But by arguing against the born-alive legislation because it might in some distant and ambiguous way obstruct abortion, Obama implies that the right to an abortion trumps an infant's right to life, even after he is born.

Such logic is breathtaking. It says that even after birth, a mother's right to rid herself of the baby supersedes any right that a child, now independent of the mother's body and domain, has a right to live. Where America stands on this issue truly is a measure of its sense of justice and compassion. On this score, Obama fails.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you for drawing attention to an issue so many are fearful of discussing. Volumes can be said about an individual's so called "character" when dealing with difficult issues. In my mind, to support live-birth abortions is even worse than advocating murder. These are innocent, helpless lives for which humanity is responsible. God certainly must be devastated to witness horrors like this in a world He hoped would be in His image and likeness.

Anonymous said...

While I support the Constitution in it's religiously neutral position regarding "Freedom of Religion," this is what freedom from religion has wrought.

The pursuit of personal pleasure replaces the pursuit of happiness; the fallout from the former leads to sexual excess (and perversion) necessitating abortions to remove the inconvenience of a child being born to the libertines among us.

I recently took part in a silent protest against abortion -- I was given a grusome photograph to hold showing a dismembered fetus. Some passersby demonstrated their displeasure at these photos. I figure, if they are too horrible to look at, why do we allow this to happen?

The same people who condone abortion would have condoned slavery although they congratulate themselves that they would have opposed it.

Margaret

Unknown said...

I found this item by googling "Obama abortion". I was looking because I had just read a Foxnews.com item about an FBI most wanted Chicago woman who gave birth in a toilet and allowed the baby to drown. She was charged with murder. She later kidnapped her daughter and fled to Mexico where she is still a fugitive after nine years. Under Obama's beliefs, she would not have commited murder, but merely killed some inconvenient tissue. What an idiot (Obama that is).
Tom
Fountain Valley, CA

Anonymous said...

First let me say that, in the past, I had always considered myself a liberal. Years ago, I would not have hesitated when asked pro-life/pro-choice and answered pro-choice. Then I had a child of my own. I truly believe life begins at conception. Thank you, Mr. Byrne, for bringing light to this sad story. I wonder if during the debates, Obama will ever clarify why he voted the way he did. I wish those who seem to be intoxicated by Obama's charm and speeches would take a few minutes to examine his record.

Anonymous said...

Mr. Byrne you are right on the money with your post. I am a neonatologist (physician who cares for babies), and it is absolute insanity what happens to babies in this country. If a baby is born premature and the parents want it, everything is done to save the infant. If the parents don't want the baby, then some OBs allow him or her to die. Born alive, partial birth abortion --all CRUEL means by which selfish people "get rid of" their babies. Absolute insanity and medicine should be ashamed of allowing it to happen. Please lets keep this guy out of the White House.

Anonymous said...

Wonderful, wonderful post. It's shocking that there could even be a debate as to whether a LIVE human being has a right to live. I just don't understand how anyone, regardless of their stance on abortion in general, could support allowing a living baby to just lay there and die. It's infanticide, and I don't see any other way to look at it.

Thank you so much for bringing this issue to light in such an intelligent and thoughtful post.

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