Lets see if we can get bring this topic to this site. This is not something Obama has campaigned on. We heard him speak at Saddleback tonight. He did not have much to say about the topic, but was asked the question in an Evangelical setting. There have been distant rumblings about the issue, but today as Christians on the left began bringing up McCain's marital failures, Christians on the right have been bringing Obama's abortion record to the fore.

I invite Micah and Tim to please bring the case. Let us hear it all. In particular, I would like to know about the action that has so incensed people. I will excerpt from Tim's comment here:

I think you are overlooking the facts surrounding Obama's votes and views on the Born Alive Infants Protection Act. It is a fact that the left and the right agreed to extend legal protection to all babies alive outside the womb. It is also a fact that Obama voted to kill a state version of BAIPA in 2003. It is also a fact that, when pressed about his opposition to the state version of BAIPA, Obama claimed (1) he voted against it because it did not include language which protected Roe v. Wade, and (2) he would have voted in favor of the state version of BAIPA if it had had language similar to that of the unopposed, bipartisan federal BAIPA, which protected Roe v. Wade. These are irrefutable facts.

However, it is also a fact that the state version of BAIPA actually did have explicit language, which had been adapted from the federal BAIPA, yet Obama nevertheless voted in the negative, meaning that he failed to extend legal protection to the most vulnerable among us ("the least of these") even though it included the explicit language which Obama claims was not there.

Assume as a moderate that I have heard little about this case other than a couple lines of print of Obama responding to the issue. What was BAIPA? Who was it protecting? What is the evidence that these protections were needed? What was at stake in Obama supporting or not supporting it?

I appreciate the open conversation on this. To start, I'd like to pass along the congressional testimony of a nurse who worked at Christ Hospital in Illinois:

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I am a Registered Nurse who has worked in the Labor & Delivery Department at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois, for the past five years. Christ Hospital performs abortions on women in their second or even third trimesters of pregnancy. Sometimes the babies being aborted are healthy, and sometimes they are not.

The method of abortion that Christ Hospital uses is called "induced labor abortion," also now known as "live birth abortion." This type of abortion can be performed different ways, but the goal always is to cause a pregnant woman's cervix to open so that she will deliver a premature baby who dies during the birth process or soon afterward. The way that induced abortion is most often executed at my hospital is by the physician inserting a medication called Cytotec into the birth canal close to the cervix. Cytotec irritates the cervix and stimulates it to open. When this occurs, the small, preterm baby drops out of the uterus, oftentimes alive. It is not uncommon for one of these live aborted babies to linger for an hour or two or even longer. One of them once lived for almost eight hours.

In the event that a baby is aborted alive, he or she receives no medical assessments or care but is only given what my hospital calls "comfort care." "Comfort care" is defined as keeping the baby warm in a blanket until he or she dies, although even this minimal compassion is not always provided. It is not required that these babies be held during their short lives.

One night, a nursing co-worker was taking an aborted Down's Syndrome baby who was born alive to our Soiled Utility Room because his parents did not want to hold him, and she did not have time to hold him. I could not bear the thought of this suffering child dying alone in a Soiled Utility Room, so I cradled and rocked him for the 45 minutes that he lived. He was 21 to 22 weeks old, weighed about 1/2 pound, and was about 10 inches long. He was too weak to move very much, expending any energy he had trying to breathe. Toward the end he was so quiet that I couldn't tell if he was still alive unless I held him up to the light to see if his heart was still beating through his chest wall. After he was pronounced dead, we folded his little arms across his chest, wrapped him in a tiny shroud, and carried him to the hospital morgue where all of our dead patients are taken.

Other co-workers have told me many upsetting stories about live aborted babies whom they have cared for. I was told about an aborted baby who was supposed to have Spina bifida but was delivered with an intact spine. Another nurse is haunted by the memory of an aborted baby who came out weighing much more than expected ~ almost two pounds. She is haunted because she doesn't know if she made a mistake by not getting that baby medical help. A Support Associate told me about a live aborted baby who was left to die on the counter of the Soiled Utility Room wrapped in a disposable towel. This baby was accidentally thrown into the garbage, and when they later were going through the trash to find the baby, the baby fell out of the towel and on to the floor.

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http://www.priestsforlife.org/testimony/stanekbakercongress.htm

[update]Sorry, Tim, I first posted this before I saw you had responded. I am just trying to pick up stuff and post it.

Regarding Illinois' laws protecting Infants Born Alive, from Obama's website:

Illinois Law Already Stated That In The Unlikely Case That An Abortion Would Cause A Live Birth, A Doctor Should "Provide Immediate Medical Care For Any Child Born Alive As A Result Of The Abortion." The Chicago Tribune reported, "'For more than 20 years, Illinois law has required that when 'there is a reasonable likelihood of sustained survival of the fetus outside the womb, with or without artificial support,' an abortion may only be performed if a physician believes 'it is necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother.' And in such cases, the law requires that the doctor use the technique 'most likely to preserve the life and health of the fetus' and perform the abortion in the presence of 'a physician other than the physician performing or inducing the abortion who shall take control of and provide immediate medical care for any child born alive as a result of the abortion.'" [Chicago Tribune, 8/17/04]

Illinois Law Stated That A Doctor Must Preserve The Life And Health Of A Fetus If In The Course Of An Abortion, There Is Reasonable Likelihood Of Sustained Survival. The Illinois Compiled Statutes stated that any physician who intentionally performs an abortion when, in his medical judgment based on the particular facts of the case before him, there is a reasonable likelihood of sustained survival of the fetus outside the womb, with or without artificial support, shall utilize that method of abortion which, of those he knows to be available, is in his medical judgment most likely to preserve the life and health of the fetus. No abortion shall be performed or induced when the fetus is viable unless there is in attendance a physician other than the physician performing or inducing the abortion who shall take control of and provide immediate medical care for any child born alive as a result of the abortion. Subsequent to the abortion, if a child is born alive, the physician required to be in attendance shall exercise the same degree of professional skill, care and diligence to preserve the life and health of the child as would be required of a physician providing immediate medical care to a child born alive in the course of a pregnancy termination which was not an abortion. Violation of these statutes constituted a Class 3 felony. [Illinois Compiled Statutes, 720 ILCS 510/6]

And NARAL's press release found here:

Opinion | NARAL Says It Does Not Oppose Born Alive Infants Act, Calls Bill 'Trap' to Put Abortion-Rights Supporters on Defensive
[Jun 20, 2001]

Despite a report by the Washington Times that several abortion-rights organizations, including the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, oppose the recently reintroduced Born Alive Infants Protection Act (S 1050/HR 2175), NARAL has indicated in a statement that it does not oppose the bill. Introduced on Friday in the Senate by Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Penn.) and in the House by Reps. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio), Melissa Hart (R-Penn.) and Sue Myrick (R-N.C.), the bill would "grant federal protection to newborns who are fully outside the mother, regardless of their stage of development" ( Kaiser Daily Reproductive Health Report, 6/15). The bill defines "born alive" as "the complete expulsion or extraction from his or her mother ... a member of the species homo sapiens ... at any stage of development, who after such expulsion or extraction 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" (S 1050/HR 2175 bill text, 6/20). In the statement, NARAL says, "Consistent with our position last year, NARAL does not oppose passage of the Born Alive Infants Protection Act. Last year's committee and floor debate served to clarify the bill's intent and assure us that it is not targeted at Roe v. Wade or a woman's right to choose" (NARAL release, 6/13). NARAL explains in its "Congressional Record on Choice," "In response [to the Supreme Court decision striking down Nebraska's "partial-birth" abortion ban, anti-choice lawmakers launched a new attack through the Born Alive Infants Protection Act. This legislation ... seeks to further mischaracterize Roe v. Wade to the American public as a decision that has recently been 'expanded' to the point that newborn infants are now at risk. Although the legislation [is] statutorily unnecessary because newborn infants already receive full legal protection (and thus NARAL did not oppose its final passage), [when introduced last year] it was openly used by its anti-choice sponsors to lure pro-choice lawmakers and advocates into the trap of defending against their preposterous mischaracterizations of the current state of abortion-rights law" (NARAL "Congressional Record on Choice 106th Congress, 2nd Session," January 2000).

Thanks Tim, I also found this article, Life With Obama on NRO. It did a decent job of filling me in.

On my first pass, there seems to be a discrepancy here. The Obama campaign is producing documents suggesting the law was in place to protect infants. The nurse is describing their lack of medical care. Either they weren't following the law, or the law did not address them. The law appears to make a delineation between infants born alive who are viable and not viable. There doesn't appear to be any care required of non-viable infants born alive. Do you know if this was specifically what the Infants Born Alive bill was changing? Was it extending care to non-viable infants, those who had no prognosis of survival?

"The law appears to make a delineation between infants born alive who are viable and not viable. There doesn't appear to be any care required of non-viable infants born alive. Do you know if this was specifically what the Infants Born Alive bill was changing? Was it extending care to non-viable infants, those who had no prognosis of survival?"

Right, the old law distinguished between viable and non-viable infants. The purpose of the new law was to remove this distinction and thereby define an infant born alive as a person under the law, regardless of whether or not the infant was viable. The point of this law is that, once the baby is outside the mother's womb, it is a person and therefore entitled to full legal protection.

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According to Paul Linton, special counsel for the Thomas More Society, the 2003 bill was a response to the question, "What duties are owed to a non-viable child born alive?" The bill sought to guarantee comfort care for non-viable infants similar to the care that would be provided to any terminally ill adult. "Many of these babies lived for hours after birth," Susan T. Muskett, legislative counsel at the NRLC, writes in an email. "Are these babies medical waste, or persons protected by the Constitution? Obama's reaction was to consider them non-entities under Roe v. Wade until they were 'viable,' even when they were gasping outside the mother."

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http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/015/404kfgky.asp

So Obama's objection that the BAIPA was superfluous ignores the distinction that BAIPA intended to clarify. Also, the 2003 Illinois BAIPA was amended to include the same exact language from the federal BAIPA which protected Roe, yet Obama nevertheless opposed that amended version, as is explained here:

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZTBkYTYzZDNjNDgyMWJmMzMxYzljYjYxNmEwMTdhYWE=

As damning as all this is to Obama, the answer given at last night's forum to Rick Warren's question "At what point does a baby get human rights, in your view?" takes the cake:

"Whether you are looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity is, you know, above my pay grade."

The thing is, though, in voting against BAIPA, Obama actually answered that question with a definite specificity: the baby does not get human rights even when it is outside the womb. That vote was apparently within his pay grade.

I would really like to get inside his mind on this, Tim. I know that is close to impossible. Those who oppose this consider him a monster. I don't think he is a monster. I don't claim to understand what his rationale is here. The gestalt I get from the whole story is that he feels acknowledging the rights of an aborted non-viable but living fetus is a threat to non-rights non-personhood status of the unborn pre-viable fetus. I would be really interested to know what has made him so passionate about his pro-choice position. He sounds like the kind of fighter who has been personally and emotionally touched by some situation or story that has cemented for him the need for a woman to be the one to make the decision regarding the morality of abortion.

His language about not wanting his daughter punished with a child offers some interesting light to this for me. I am curious what consequences he has seen, what has been so awful that he would be willing to fight so hard against someone being forced into that position again.

His above my paygrade question was interesting. On the one hand, I agreed with his premise. Asking the question theologically or scientifically, it is not a simple question. At the same time, as he said this I though, the pro-life people in the crowd are not going to like that answer at all because they are electing people specifically because they are willing to answer that question and do so forcefully.

What I would add to this is that Obama has on several occasions said that he supports limits on late term abortions. He must, then have some qualms about aborting viable babies, or at least appreciate the oppositions position regarding it.