GOP Nominee
Former Candidates
I’ve commented on the threat that Obama’s votes (and non-votes) on the Born Alive Infant Protection Act would have on his candidacy, especially on swing voters. I explicitly didn’t take a position on the fairness of the accusations, in part because so little has been written on this to date by other than partisans on either side, it is difficult to sort out what is what, and in part because my point didn’t really revolve around the fairness of the accusation as much as the perception (which is what matters in politics). If this accusation is unfair, I don’t see it as any more unfair than, say, Dems unearthing the Keating Five scandal, but failing to acknowledge the fact that the Senate Ethics Committee counsel recommended that McCain be dropped and ultimately concluded that McCain had only exercised “poor judgment.” That’s just how the game is played.
But since people have been trading barbs on the Illinois version of BAIPA, mainly through op-eds, I thought I’d try to unearth the actual text. This is what I’ve come up with:
If you have a better copy, I’d be interested in seeing it, but this should hopefully give us something better to work with than the views of hyper-partisans on either side. You can decide for yourself how much of a threat to Roe the bill posed. The counter to this argument (aside from the fact that it is questionable whether this really poses a threat to Roe) is that Obama apparently killed an attempt to change the Illinois definition to match up with the federal definition. As for the argument that it was already illegal, I’m not sure that’s right. Obama speaks out against the bill on March 30, 2001. My understanding is that the federal act wasn’t signed until August 2002.
So there you have it. This is what I can piece together from the internets, though I’m open to additional pieces of data, and will fill them in if they come in under the comments.
February 21st, 2008 at 2:24 pm
Sorry for a completely unrelated post, but I could not find a VP story readily available.
Today I thought I had a bit of a revelation. Kit Bind for VP. He is in the Senate, but was a governor. He moves Missouri solidly into the Republican column. He helps secure the South. He also has a son serving in Iraq, meaning both men on the ticket would have that powerful fact in common. He could even make a similar promise to serve only one term out with McCain. He brings gravitas, a swing state, and regional balance.
Again, I apologize as I don’t mean to hijack this thread, but I can’t get this off my mind and perhaps someone could tell me why his name does not seem come up, some skeleton in the closet?
February 21st, 2008 at 2:30 pm
yeah, he’s got some problems. nothing i’ll go into here.
February 21st, 2008 at 3:08 pm
I really want this to get picked up by the mainstream press. Someone, anyone to pick this story up. I told my mother, a strong Obama supporter about this and her first instinct…instantly changing her mind. This could swing the entire election if it gets out there…it has to get out there because, frankly, it says a ton about the moral character of the Junior Senator from Illinois…or the lack thereof.
February 21st, 2008 at 3:32 pm
The article here has beenDigged.
February 21st, 2008 at 4:13 pm
‘As for the argument that it was already illegal, I’m not sure that’s right. Obama speaks out against the bill on March 30, 2001. My understanding is that the federal act wasn’t signed until August 2002.”
What is the logic here Sean?
It was illegal in Illinois. The claim is not that it was illegal because of the federal law.
February 21st, 2008 at 4:23 pm
Easy there killer. My understanding was that the argument was that he didn’t vote for the bill because it was already illegal under federal law. Which seemed like a particularly specious argument, which is why I said “I don’t think this is right” rather than “this is an absurd argument” and welcomed additional facts if people had them. I would be curious to see what the pre-existing statute actually said.
February 21st, 2008 at 4:33 pm
And the links that you provide that supposedly demonstrate an attempt to equate the state law to the federal, do not demonstrate that at all.
The clauses that seem to speak of the law not impacting abortion laws seems, as best I can see, to have become effective in 2006, long after Obama was gone. Where is the evidence you claim of him trying to kill any language equating the IL law with federal alw?
We do have the quote from his debate (appearing in comments in two threads yesterday) that he would have supported language aligning the IL law to federal law.
And of course it leaves the question hanging - if there is alreday a federa law in place, then the state law becomes irrelevant - redundant.
Clearly the motivation to pass a state law is to do something different than federal law.
February 21st, 2008 at 4:36 pm
Sean,
From the link I provided in the thread yesterday - a Chicago Trib article about the controversy:
“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.”
February 21st, 2008 at 4:43 pm
From Obama’s March 30, 2001 remarks on the Illinois Senate floor:
OBAMA: This bill was fairly extensively debated in the Judiciary Committee, and so I won’t belabor the issue. I do want to just make sure that everybody in the Senate knows what this bill is about, as I understand it. Senator O’Malley, the testimony during the committee indicated that one of the key concerns was — is that there was a method of abortion, an induced abortion, where the — the fetus or child, as — as some might describe it, is still temporarily alive outside the womb. And one of the concerns that came out in the testimony was the fact that they were not being properly cared for during that brief period of time that they were still living. Is that correct? Is that an accurate sort of description of one of the key concerns in the bill?
O’MALLEY: Senator Obama, it is certainly a key concern that the — the way children are treated following their birth under these circumstances has been reported to be, without question, in my opinion, less than humane, and so this bill suggests that appropriate steps be taken to treat that baby as a — a citizen of the United States and afforded all the rights and protections it deserves under the Constitution of the United States.
OBAMA: Well, it turned out — that during the testimony a number of members who are typically in favor of a woman’s right to choose an abortion were actually sympathetic to some of the concerns that your — you raised and that were raised by witnesses in the testimony. And there was some suggestion that we might be able to craft something that might meet constitutional muster with respect to caring for fetuses or children who were delivered in this fashion. Unfortunately, this bill goes a little bit further, and so I just want to suggest, not that I think it’ll make too much difference with respect to how we vote, that this is probably not going to survive constitutional scrutiny. Number one, whenever we define a previable fetus as a person that is protected by the equal protection clause or the other elements in the Constitution, what we’re really saying is, in fact, that they are persons that are entitled to the kinds of protections that would be provided to a — a child, a nine-month-old — child that was delivered to term. That determination then, essentially, if it was accepted by a court, would forbid abortions to take place. I mean, it — it would essentially bar abortions, because the equal protection clause does not allow somebody to kill a child, and if this is a child. Then this would be an antiabortion statute. For that purpose, I think it would probably be found unconstitutional.
The second reason that it would probably be found unconstitutional is that this essentially says that a doctor is required to provide treatment to a previable child, or fetus, however way you want to describe it. Viability is the line that has been drawn by the Supreme Court to determine whether or not an abortion can or cannot take place. And if we’re placing a burden on the doctor that says you have to keep alive even a previable child as long as possible and give them as much medical attention as — as is necessary to try to keep that child alive, then we’re probably crossing the line in terms of unconstitutionality. Now, as I said before, this probably won’t make any difference. I recall the last time we had a debate about abortion, we passed a bill out of here. I suggested to Members of the Judiciary Committee that it was unconstitutional and it would be struck down by the Seventh Circuit. It was. I recognize this is a passionate issue, and so I — I won’t, as I said, belabor the point. I think it’s important to recognize though that this is an area where potentially we might have compromised and — and arrived at a bill that dealt with the narrow concerns about how a — a previable fetus or child was treated by a hospital. We decided not to do that. We’re going much further than that in this bill. As a consequence, I think that we will probably end up in court once again, as we often do, on this issue. And as a consequence, I’ll be voting Present.
February 21st, 2008 at 5:36 pm
Tano,
No offense, but can you get the link to the Trib article? All I found was a blog entry. Then again, there’s hundreds of comments on this site (which make me miss my site), so I might have missed something. If you meant a blog entry rather than an actual article, my point here is that I’m trying to move beyond just the Amanda Carpenters and Eric Zorn’s of the world here and get some actual primary sourcing.
Regardless, you will note that the definition used in the late-term abortion act “reasonable likelihood” of survival, which wouldn’t necessarily cover babies (and at this point it is a baby) who, for example, are barely viable, or on the borderline (especially since this is apparently a pre-Casey statute). If nothing else, this act would close that loophole. Moreover, this bill isn’t just about clearly post-viable fetuses, but for any fetus that somehow makes its way through an abortion and emerges still living. Quite frankly, yes, I think as long as it is completely outside the woman’s body and alive (and viable doesn’t mean “born dead,” it means “won’t survive past a few minutes”), we have a duty as a society to provide basic medical care, rather than what the nurse who testified on this stated was going on (eg dumping it in the supply closet). I haven’t seen her purported pictures and would understand objections to the idea that this would occur, but then again, I didn’t think something like intact D&E would occur prior to hearing about it in 1996.
The link I provided shows the amendment was attempted and bottled up in 2003 — if I’m reading this correctly, its pretty clear from the chronology. I do notice that the linked amendment references 2006, and don’t know what to make of that citation. Like I said, if people have better copies of things, I am open to receiving them. This is the primary source data as I found it on the web, but I would guess others will come up with additional documentation.
w/r/t the federal/state issue. This is pretty simple. The federal law adds 1 USC sec. 8, which by its terms only affects federal law. This imposes a similar definition on states, which is the reason for the state law.
BTW, reading Aron’s excerpts, his constitutional analysis is pretty specious. Unlike the PBA ban, this doesn’t ban a proceedure, it just requires an RX to provide medical care for a still-living fetus that makes its way through an abortion, for as long as it continues living. Doesn’t impact a woman’s right to choose to end her pregnancy, which I think most people agree ends once the fetus makes its way outside her body.
February 21st, 2008 at 6:39 pm
Sean,
According to the Illinois Abortion Law of 1975 (720 ILCS 510/1):
“Viability” means that stage of fetal development when, in the medical judgment of the attending physician 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.
February 21st, 2008 at 6:40 pm
Here’s the link:
http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/ilcs3.asp?ActID=1928&ChapAct=720%C2%A0ILCS%C2%A0510%2F&ChapterID=53&ChapterName=CRIMINAL+OFFENSES&ActName=Illinois+Abortion+Law+of+1975%2E&Print=True
February 21st, 2008 at 7:07 pm
Aron,
What’s interesting about that link is that it appears the federal definition of “born alive” is already in the Code, section 510/2. I haven’t done a careful comparison, but would anyone care to respond to this (I’ll note no one else seems to have noticed this, and it would have been a much stronger argument for Zorn than the one he hung his hat on than what he did . . .)?
February 21st, 2008 at 7:30 pm
Thanks, Sean O. I’m looking at the actual text of the bill and the actual text of what Obama said and I’m horrified. The bill: once a baby is fully born, you have to treat it as a baby.
Obama: but you’re treating even babies who are probably going to die anyway as babies! That’s against the Constitution.!
Pretty horrific.
February 21st, 2008 at 7:31 pm
Thanks, Sean O. I’m looking at the actual text of the bill and the actual text of what Obama said and I’m horrified. The bill: once a baby is fully born, you have to treat it as a baby.
Obama: but you’re treating even babies who are probably going to die anyway as babies! That’s against the Constitution.!
Pretty horrific. And agreed that the constitutional argument is bogus.
March 8th, 2008 at 9:01 am
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March 8th, 2008 at 9:33 am
[...] to this source, these are Obama’s own words in arguing against the bill: Number one, whenever we define a [...]