This would be laughable execept for the sad fact that this stands a chance to successfully deceive those pro-life voters looking for an excuse to support Obama.
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and his supporters are working to win over voters who want to ban or reduce abortions with a call for measures to help women keep their babies.The Democrats are hoping to dupe pro-life voters by finagling the empty language of their party platform to divert attention from some of Barack Obama's radical positions on abortion. In particular, his actions supporting late-term infanticide like this:
The party's platform supports the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling that made abortion legal and adds a twist, saying the party ``strongly'' backs a woman's decision to carry a pregnancy to term. The compromise language is the result of behind-the-scenes negotiations with abortion-rights groups and religious leaders on both sides of the issue.
The idea is to frame abortion as less of an either-or issue by discussing both the need to keep abortion legal and the desire to provide programs for expectant and new mothers. It may help Democrats woo evangelical Christians, a core Republican constituency that backed President George W. Bush by a margin of 77 percent in 2004.
On March 30, 2001, Obama was the only senator to speak in opposition to a bill that would have banned the practice of leaving premature abortion survivors to die. The bill, SB 1095, was carefully limited, its language unambiguous. It applied only to premature babies, already born alive. It stated simply that under Illinois law, "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."Here are some quotes on the specifics of his abortion position, including his 100% approval rating from the abortion lobbyists at NARAL.
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Under this bill, SB 1095, babies born alive during an abortion would have to be treated just like every other baby that is born alive and prematurely — not left to die as at Christ Hospital, but given treatment according to an acting physician’s medical judgment as to what is necessary and what is possible — the same standard that applies to any other human being.
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Most people, whatever their view on abortion, agree that the Constitution at least guarantees the rights of born and living human beings. Barack Obama does not agree. For him, the Constitution exists primarily in order to guarantee the right to abortion, and other rights of human persons — born and alive — are secondary. Beginning with abortion rights as his premise, he draws as his conclusion the unfortunate but necessary legality of infanticide.
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UPDATE: Allahpundit brings the heat:
In other words, even if a pre-viable baby is born alive during a botched abortion and is considered a "person," the state still shouldn't require doctors to treat it lest some wingnut judge seize on the idea to try to extend "personhood" to unborn fetuses still in the womb. Note that the Illinois bill explicitly addressed this concern by limiting itself to "born" fetuses so that it couldn't be used in this way as anti-Roe precedent. Not good enough for Obama. But say this for him: His liberal logic is consistent. If the mother's intent is to abort and the baby somehow survives the procedure, why should its stroke of luck (or the doctor's negligence) thwart her "choice"? She came there to kill it, she has a constitutional right to kill it, so she gets to kill it. Anything less would be insufficiently "progressive." Exit question: Never mind how Obama voted — how'd they get 40+ Democratic senators to oppose this?
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