On Obama and Infanticide

"Infanticide is a bracing word" says NRO's Andrew McCarthy who then adds, "But in this context, it’s the only word that fits." McCarthy makes this reference in an article entitled Why Obama Really Voted For Infanticide.

"There wasn’t any question about what was happening. The abortions were going wrong. The babies weren’t cooperating. They wouldn’t die as planned. Or, as Illinois state senator Barack Obama so touchingly put it, there was “movement or some indication that, in fact, they’re not just coming out limp and dead.”

No, Senator. They wouldn’t go along with the program. They wouldn’t just come out limp and dead. They were coming out alive. Born alive. Babies. Vulnerable human beings Obama, in his detached pomposity, might otherwise include among “the least of my brothers.” But of course, an abortion extremist can’t very well be invoking Saint Matthew, can he? So, for Obama, the shunning of these least of our brothers and sisters — millions of them — is somehow not among America’s greatest moral failings.

No. In Obama’s hardball, hard-Left world, these least become “that fetus, or child — however you want to describe it.”

Most of us, of course, opt for “child,” particularly when the “it” is born and living and breathing and in need of our help. Particularly when the “it” is clinging not to guns or religion but to life.
But not Barack Obama. As an Illinois state senator, he voted to permit infanticide."

Let there be no doubt whatsoever that Obama actually did vote "to permit infanticide". First, one can cite his vote in the Illinois senate (in committee) on March 6th, 2002 where he voted "no" on the Born Alive Infant Protection Act. A month later, on April 4th, 2002 he would vote "no" again, this time on the senate floor in a roll call vote.

This is where it gets dicey. In August of 2002, the US Congress passed the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act "To protect infants who are born alive." It passed the US Senate on a vote of 98-0 and even such staunch pro-aborts as Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton voted in favor of it.

In 2003, the same (Illinois state) bill's language was slightly changed and in effect, was now identical to the federal one. As one can see in this link, Obama first voted to amend the bill, which altered the languge to make it the same as the federal one, and then voted "no" on passing it. (DPA on this form stands for "Do Pass Amended").

Obama has many times denied that the bills were the same, that is until August of 2008 when the New York Sun ran an article in which they stated....

"The dispute flared again last week when a leading opponent of legalized abortion, the National Right to Life Committee, posted records from the Illinois Legislature showing that Mr. Obama, while chairman of a Senate committee, in 2003, voted against a "Born Alive" bill that contained nearly identical language to the federal bill that passed unanimously, including the provision limiting its scope.

The group says the documents prove Mr. Obama misrepresented his record. Indeed, Mr. Obama appeared to misstate his position in the CBN interview on Saturday when he said the federal version he supported "was not the bill that was presented at the state level."

His campaign yesterday acknowledged that he had voted against an identical bill in the state Senate..."

Another argument attempting to downplay Obama's voting record on the matter goes something like this. "Obama is a father of two young kids. Anybody like that couldnt support infanticide". I thought Erick Erickson's reply to this sort of reasoning in his article entitled Obama in His Own Words: There Is No Doubt He Supported Infanticide was quite interesting. "Margaret Sanger and Josef Mengele both had children too."