Obama and abortion.
Jessamyn said this should be in metatalk, so here it is.
There was some discussion in the
Palin Straight Talk thread about Obama's stance on treating babies who survive abortions the same as any other babies. Obama repeatedly voted NO on a bill that would do so. His reasoning now is that he felt they would undermine Roe v. Wade, but his reasoning has changed over time and he
changed his explanation about what his reasoning was on his webpage.
When the subject was brought up again, people argued that it was already debunked. This was not the case. Jessamyn's debunking was:
Leaving babies to die is a crime in and of itself. The language used in many of these "partial birth abortion" discussions is not the language of doctors, it's the language of people who want to control doctors. World Net Daily is not a reliable news source. The baby Jill Stanek is highlighting on her blog claiming it was "born alive" post-abortion was from 1977. This is not debunking of an argument. Just because someone has an old picture on her personal website to make her point, does not mean her (recent) testimony (before a court) is invalid!. And just stating "leaving babies to die is a crime" does not make it so, because the exact issue here is "when does a baby become a person". A few other people weighed in, saying things like
Now, davar, is there anything else you want to say in defense of allowing anti-abortion extremist busybodys to jam feeding tubes down the throats of nonviable infants, despite the parents' wishes? (jonp72) and
If you believe that shit, as I said, you're either disingenuous or easily misled because you're stupid. Or both (fourcheesemac).
In the meantime, nobody actually debunked the fact that Obama voted against this bill. People just disagreed with the implications. It is true that in Illinois there already is a law that for abortions where the aborting doctor expects there to be a reasonable chance for sustained survival of the infant, there should be a second doctor present to look after that child. But that was not what this bill was about. This bill was about children who unexpectedly survive an abortion, and were left to die in a utility room or in a trash can.
Obama says now that the only reason he voted against the bill was because he was afraid it would undermine current Illinois abortion laws. But he did not say that before (see the factcheck article). In interviews about this, he never reasonably and calmly says that of course he is in favor of this bill, if only it had [insert specific wording here]. He sounds angry and defensive, talks about how burdensome it is to arrange a second doctor, how hard this is for the parents who made a decision to abort. On the question "when does a baby become a person" he answers with the cop-out: "That's above my pay grade".
I don't know why people in the thread assume that treating a 23 week old surviving baby the same as a 23 week old stillborn baby means throwing tubes down their throats. Do you do that in the US with 23 week old babies, against the parent's wishes? To me, treating them the same means basically to hold them in your arms and see if you can do anything to alleviate their pain.
I already said that I know he means well and I mostly disagree with his interpretation of the threat that this bill would pose, or with the fact that he did not do anything to change the wording of the bill. In fact, he (or his collegues in the IL senate) did make an amendment to the 2003 bill, which was accepted, and after that he (and the collegues) voted against it anyway. He could have proposed an amendment that worked for him.
I also understand that it is rare that babies survive abortion and that McCain kills much more babies than Obama. But I still disagree with Obama on this. That does not make me stupid or an anti-abortion-extremist. I agree with much of the points in
this article.
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note: Everyone needs a hug.
posted by disillusioned at 2:17 AM on September 21, 2008