Obama's Abortion Views

Michele McGinty of “Reformed Chicks Blabbing” (http://blog.beliefnet.com/reformedchicksblabbing/) at Beliefnet posted a story on March 5, 2008, drawing attention to Obama’s extreme pro-abortion position. She, in turn, linked a Wednesday, March 5, 2008, post from Between Two Worlds ( http://theologica.blogspot.com/2008/03/obamas-opposition-to-born-alive-infant.html ) that documents Obama’s systematic opposition to the Born Alive Infant Protection Act over a period of three years when he not only voted against the bill, but argued against it on the floor of the Senate twice. The post in turn linked a January 10, 2008, article by Jill Stanek describing the ten reasons why Obama was opposed to Illinois’ Born Alive Infant Protection Act when he was a state senator. It is worth noting that the ten reasons are all notably bad. Obama tries to claim that the activity forbidden by the bill—letting babies born alive during an abortion live—never occurs. This is simply not true. There are documented instances of it. And if it never did occur, there would be no legitimate reason for not making it illegal. Obama also shows his lack of understanding of legislative distinctions by claiming that making a baby born alive as the result of an abortion a person would require that unborn babies also be regarded by the law as persons. I certainly do believe that the law should regard unborn babies as persons, but unfortunately, this is an easy distinction for courts to make because they think personhood status is something they can assign or take away. Obama also thought that allowing the babies to live would be a “burden on women” which makes no sense at all. The natural mother will not need to raise the baby. She need never hear about it again. Obama also claimed that there is no reason to oppose abortion that is not tied to a particular faith. This is simply not true. Even people who have no faith at all can recognize the idea that a human being is human and entitled to human rights from conception when its biological life obviously begins rather than at some arbitrary point chosen for the convenience of other human beings. As Hadley Arkes has pointed out, we would consider it tyranny of the grossest kind if we applied the same sort of logic to any other class of human beings. Obama also tried to claim that the Born Alive Protection Act was purely political. This too is an argument that makes little or no sense. Obviously the bill has an effect or no one would be interested in passing it.

For all his supposed warm fuzziness and desire to find a new way, it would appear that Obama’s position on abortion is actually harsh, extremist, and old. It is decidedly not warm and fuzzy. There is nothing kind and generous about allowing a living newborn to die simply because its mother had tried to kill it earlier and been unsuccessful. Nearly everyone in the House and Senate have been unanimous in supporting the Born Alive Infant Protection Act. Opposition to it is indeed an extremist position.