This past Saturday night, Reverend Rick Warren, author of the bestselling book: The Purpose Driven Life and founder of the 22,000 member Saddleback Church in California, hosted a forum with Presidential candidates, Barack Obama and John McCain.  During the event, Rev. Warren asked Barack Obama: “When does a baby get human rights in your view?”

Now, everyone knows that Barack Obama is Pro-Choice.  In fact, he is one of the most fervent Pro-Choice members of the Senate.  Barack Obama himself has said: “Throughout my career, I've been a consistent and strong supporter of reproductive justice, and have consistently had a 100% pro-choice rating with Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America."  Senator Obama has never claimed to be anything but supportive of a woman’s right to choose.  This is, of course, his right as an American.

So why when posed with the question: “When does a baby get human rights in your view” did he give this bizarre answer: “Well, you know, I think that whether you’re looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay grade.”

Excuse me?  Above your pay grade?  Let’s forget for a second that he is running for President.  There is no higher pay grade.  Let’s just forget that because what is so troublesome about this is that Barack, who has voted numerous times to give women the right to choose, apparently doesn’t have an opinion on when human life begins, the central question to the issue.  How can this be?  How can he come to the conclusion that it is morally and socially acceptable to have an abortion without considering when life begins?  Why didn’t he just say that he believes that a baby deserves human rights after it is born.  That would make perfect sense considering his position and is what most Pro-Choice supporters believe.

Well, it turns out there’s a good reason why Barack Obama couldn’t answer that question.  His voting record as an Illinois State Senator reveals that Barack may not believe that a baby deserves human rights even after it is born.

In 1999, a nurse at the Christ Hospital and Medical Center in Oak Lawn, Illinois named Jill Stanek held a dying baby in her arms.  She found the dying baby abandoned in a utility closet.  What she discovered next shocked her even more.  It turns out that standard procedure at the hospital dictated that the baby be stored in a utility closet with other medical waste until it died.  Jill went to the State Attorney General.  Chicago Sun Times reporter, Dennis Byrne, investigated her complaints.  He expected the hospital to deny her claims: “instead a spokeswoman explained [the procedure] is used for ‘a variety of second-trimester’ abortions when the fetus has not yet reached viability.  That's up to 23 weeks of life, when a fetus is considered not yet developed enough to survive on its own.  Instead of medical care, the child is provided ‘comfort care’, wrapped in a blanket and held when possible.  Under Christ Hospital's procedure, which the spokeswoman said is used at some other area hospitals, the “abortion” is induced with a drug that relaxes the cervix and allows for the fetus to be born…one hospital nurse has complained that babies are sometimes left to struggle on their own for up six or seven hours until death frees them from their torment…Jill Stanek, says she has seen some elective abortions done on newborns whose physical or mental defects are deemed incompatible only with ‘quality of life.’"

As you can imagine, once made public, the procedure was considered by many to be “infanticide” or “murder”.  After all, the babies were born alive and essentially left to die.  Well, thanks to Jill Stanek, an Infant Protection Bill was introduced to the Illinois State Senate in 2001 to ban the procedure.  Jill testified as to what she had repeatedly witnessed.

There was one speaker against the bill, State Senator Barack Obama.  As Chairman, he held the bill up in committee for two years, voted against it 3 times and led the charge to defeat the bill that could have provided dignity and protection to the most defenseless among us: a newborn baby.

Thankfully, the United States Senate acted and the Federal Born Alive Infants Protection Act passed unanimously in 2002.  Even the most fervent Pro-Choice Senators like Barbara Boxer, Ted Kennedy, and Hillary Clinton voted in favor of banning this procedure and protecting these newborns.  Unlike Barack, they were able to make a clear distinction between a standard abortion and this procedure.

When recently asked about his efforts to defeat the Illinois Born Alive Infants Protection Act.  Barack denied the account.  He said that he would have supported the Federal bill too and only voted against the Illinois bill because it did not include language protecting Roe vs. Wade.

Well as it turns out, this is not true.  His campaign admitted Monday that Barack saw to it that the language protecting Roe vs. Wade was inserted into that bill, but then still voted against the final version which was identical to the Federal bill that passed unanimously.

And so, while it becomes clear why Barack couldn’t answer that simple question from Rev. Rick Warren, this disturbing account should leave both Pro-Life and Pro-Choice Americans with many more questions about who this man is and what he is capable of?


Sources:

Byrne, Dennis; "A New Low in Heartlessness"; Chicago Sun-Times; 09.29.1999

Jeffrey, Terence; "Obama and Pro-Life Liars"; www.townhall.com; 08.20.2008

Shiver, Kyle-Anne; "Obama's Christian Creds vs. Abortion and Infanticide"; 
    www.americanthinker.com; 08.17.2008