So much of politics often deals with the negative side of everything. Much lip-service is paid towards “cleaning up politics” and making things more positive. For the most part, this is impossible. What you have is two or more groups of people passionately believing something and attempting to explain their worldview. Since most of what I write about deals with these hot-button issues, it’s nice to sit back every once-and-a-while and write a story about something inspiring.
Most of America has yet to hear about a young man named Henry Cejudo; and certainly almost all of America outside of the wrestling community. Cejudo is a 21-year-old wrestler who represented the United States at the Olympic Games this year at the 55 kg. (121 pound) weight class. He was a four-time state champion in high school, splitting his years between Colorado and Arizona. Cejudo was the youngest Olympic champion in the history of American wrestling; but that’s probably the least of the obstacles he had to overcome.
Henry Cejudo was born the sixth (and last) child to two undocumented workers while they were living in California. His father left him at the age of 4 and returned to Mexico, while his mother decided to stay in the United States to ensure a better future for her children. Cejudo’s older brothers discovered the joy of wrestling and passed that on to him.
After winning four state championships, Henry decided to forgo certain full-ride scholarships to college and train for the 2008 Olympics. As someone who adjusted to college wrestling coming out of high school, I can’t even imagine how difficult it would be to go from high school to international competition. Nevertheless, Cejudo trained for a few years and earned a spot on the U.S. Olympic Team.
In freestyle wrestling (which differs from normal high school and college wrestling), a competitor must win two of the three periods to prevail. All three of Cejudo’s matches on the way to the championship bout went the same way. He lost the first periods and had to claw his way back by taking the next two. A difficult task…but relatively minor compared to the obstacles he put up with throughout his life.
I’m not going to pretend I know Henry Cejudo. From what I’ve read, he lived a life in which his family did not have a lot of money. He was a citizen, but his parents were not. I can only imagine the types of struggles that he has been dealt; I can only imagine because my life has been so easy in comparison.
All of this makes for an amazing story. But the thing that amazed me the most was Cejudo’s answers when he talked about his Olympic gold medal in retrospect. He spoke about “(having) that American blood pumping through my veins.” He called the United States the “land of opportunity” and the “greatest country in the world…I’m just proud to be an American.”
I read an interesting news story once that commented that depending on where you went in the world, people had different thoughts about what Americans looked like. In more modernized countries (like Western Europe), they saw all of us as white. In the Latin American countries (like Cuba), many saw a huge influence of Hispanic culture. In some Asian countries (most notably China) and parts of Africa, they thought that we were mostly black. The reasons for this vary, but I personally see it as something to celebrate. I was watching swimming this year and when a (seemingly) white swimmer from Zimbabwe competed, I was dumbfounded. Different colors, races, and religions are scarcely represented in other countries; and yet nobody thinks twice about it here in America.
By the end of the interview, I thought to myself: “This guy really gets it.” Henry Cejudo understands America; far better than the rest of the world, far better than most politicians, and probably far better than me and most of you.
The American Dream is still a reality.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Obama and Abortion Survivors: Clarifying the Record
Update: Barack Obama offered a refutation to the claims made in my last article. Here is the response.
Obama and Abortion Survivors: Clarifying the Record
By Paul Kengor and Jarrett Skorup
A few weeks ago at NRO we posted a piece on Barack Obama’s votes in the Illinois legislature on a statewide version of the federal Born Alive Infant Protection Act (BAIPA)—i.e., legislation requiring medical personnel to provide treatment to infants who unexpectedly survive abortion procedures. http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZDI0MDJiOTM1Zjk0NjUyNWM2NzY3YTdmM2I2MWUyZDM=
Our point was to clarify the record and to add a crucial “rest of the story” that is still being missed: how this legislation sailed right through the Illinois legislature once its primary obstacle—Barack Obama—left the Illinois Senate for the U.S. Senate. In both senates, Illinois and the United States, the born-alive legislation was passed unanimously, but only in the absence of Senator Barack Obama.
This issue is now heating up, as Obama addressed the subject over the weekend in a question from CBN’s David Brody, and as talk-radio is now firmly on board. The latest is that Sean Hannity plans to interview Jill Stanek, the nurse at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois, where babies were aborted and those that survived were left to die. We interviewed Stanek at length for our article. She, too, can clarify the facts in this debate, and as an eye-witness.
Obama, hailed for being smooth and articulate, fumbles and bumbles and contradicts himself when forced to answer the simplest questions on human life, from whether life begins at conception to his votes on abortion survivors in the Illinois legislature. Here’s the latest on this issue, compliments of Obama’s remarks to Brody over the weekend:
Speaking of Evangelicals, Catholics, and the National Right to Life Committee, Brody noted to Obama that “they’re basically saying they felt like you misrepresented your position on that bill [the Illinois version of BAIPA].” Obama dove right in: “Let me clarify this right now … because they have not been telling the truth. And I hate to say that people are lying, but here’s a situation where folks are lying.”
Obama explained: “I have said repeatedly that I would have been completely in, fully in support of the federal bill that everybody supported, which was to say that you should provide assistance to any infant that was born, even if it was as a consequence of an induced abortion. That was not the bill that was presented at the state level. What that bill also was doing was trying to undermine Roe vs. Wade…. So for people to suggest that I … [was] somehow in favor of withholding life-saving support from an infant born alive is ridiculous. It defies commonsense and it defies imagination, and for people to keep on pushing this is offensive and it’s an example of the kind of politics that we have to get beyond.”
Obama claimed that these “people” were “misrepresent[ing] my positions repeatedly, even after they know that they’re wrong. And that’s what’s been happening.”
What’s the true answer here? The reality is that Obama needs to admit he was wrong, that he exercised bad judgment, and deal with it. His position is not being misrepresented.
What Obama is saying is partly true. Yes, he believed that the Illinois version of BAIPA—which, we were told, was identical to the federal bill, certainly in intent—would undermine Roe v. Wade. That is indeed the reason why he opposed the legislation. He opposed the legislation not because he wanted to see abortion survivors slowly die on cold tables or in trash cans at Illinois “hospitals,” like Christ Hospital, but because he feared that passing such legislation would undermine Roe v. Wade—the holy grail of modern liberalism.
We noted precisely this in our last article. We quoted Pam Sutherland, the president of the Illinois Planned Parenthood Council, who defended Obama on this exact point, “The legislation was written to ban abortion, plain and simple. Senator Obama saw the legislation, when he was there, for what it was.”
Quite the contrary, Obama did not see the legislation for what it was. He was all alone as an obstacle to the legislation. Obama had fallen for the classic red herring by the abortion industry, which argues that practically any restriction on abortion, no matter how sensible and humane, will undermine the sacred Roe v. Wade.
Obama was wrong. The obvious proof is that the passage of such legislation, at the state and national level, has not undermined Roe v. Wade. The most fanatical pro-choicers in the U.S. Senate, from Barbara Boxer to Hillary Clinton, understood this and thus voted in favor of BAIPA. Obama, however, failed to make the crucial distinction.
That does not mean that Obama is a monster who enjoys killing babies, and suggesting so would indeed be “offensive.” At the very least, however, this calls into question his judgment, his experience, and his decision-making abilities—crucial characteristics for a man who wants to be president of the United States.
It is also revealing of his stridency on the abortion issue and blind loyalty to the abortion movement. Barack Obama is to the left of Hillary Clinton on abortion.
Of all the policy areas where Obama could have failed his fellow citizens, this one was pretty darned serious.
Paul Kengor is professor is professor of political science and executive director of the Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College. Jarrett Skorup is a student fellow at the Center for Vision & Values.
Obama and Abortion Survivors: Clarifying the Record
By Paul Kengor and Jarrett Skorup
A few weeks ago at NRO we posted a piece on Barack Obama’s votes in the Illinois legislature on a statewide version of the federal Born Alive Infant Protection Act (BAIPA)—i.e., legislation requiring medical personnel to provide treatment to infants who unexpectedly survive abortion procedures. http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZDI0MDJiOTM1Zjk0NjUyNWM2NzY3YTdmM2I2MWUyZDM=
Our point was to clarify the record and to add a crucial “rest of the story” that is still being missed: how this legislation sailed right through the Illinois legislature once its primary obstacle—Barack Obama—left the Illinois Senate for the U.S. Senate. In both senates, Illinois and the United States, the born-alive legislation was passed unanimously, but only in the absence of Senator Barack Obama.
This issue is now heating up, as Obama addressed the subject over the weekend in a question from CBN’s David Brody, and as talk-radio is now firmly on board. The latest is that Sean Hannity plans to interview Jill Stanek, the nurse at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois, where babies were aborted and those that survived were left to die. We interviewed Stanek at length for our article. She, too, can clarify the facts in this debate, and as an eye-witness.
Obama, hailed for being smooth and articulate, fumbles and bumbles and contradicts himself when forced to answer the simplest questions on human life, from whether life begins at conception to his votes on abortion survivors in the Illinois legislature. Here’s the latest on this issue, compliments of Obama’s remarks to Brody over the weekend:
Speaking of Evangelicals, Catholics, and the National Right to Life Committee, Brody noted to Obama that “they’re basically saying they felt like you misrepresented your position on that bill [the Illinois version of BAIPA].” Obama dove right in: “Let me clarify this right now … because they have not been telling the truth. And I hate to say that people are lying, but here’s a situation where folks are lying.”
Obama explained: “I have said repeatedly that I would have been completely in, fully in support of the federal bill that everybody supported, which was to say that you should provide assistance to any infant that was born, even if it was as a consequence of an induced abortion. That was not the bill that was presented at the state level. What that bill also was doing was trying to undermine Roe vs. Wade…. So for people to suggest that I … [was] somehow in favor of withholding life-saving support from an infant born alive is ridiculous. It defies commonsense and it defies imagination, and for people to keep on pushing this is offensive and it’s an example of the kind of politics that we have to get beyond.”
Obama claimed that these “people” were “misrepresent[ing] my positions repeatedly, even after they know that they’re wrong. And that’s what’s been happening.”
What’s the true answer here? The reality is that Obama needs to admit he was wrong, that he exercised bad judgment, and deal with it. His position is not being misrepresented.
What Obama is saying is partly true. Yes, he believed that the Illinois version of BAIPA—which, we were told, was identical to the federal bill, certainly in intent—would undermine Roe v. Wade. That is indeed the reason why he opposed the legislation. He opposed the legislation not because he wanted to see abortion survivors slowly die on cold tables or in trash cans at Illinois “hospitals,” like Christ Hospital, but because he feared that passing such legislation would undermine Roe v. Wade—the holy grail of modern liberalism.
We noted precisely this in our last article. We quoted Pam Sutherland, the president of the Illinois Planned Parenthood Council, who defended Obama on this exact point, “The legislation was written to ban abortion, plain and simple. Senator Obama saw the legislation, when he was there, for what it was.”
Quite the contrary, Obama did not see the legislation for what it was. He was all alone as an obstacle to the legislation. Obama had fallen for the classic red herring by the abortion industry, which argues that practically any restriction on abortion, no matter how sensible and humane, will undermine the sacred Roe v. Wade.
Obama was wrong. The obvious proof is that the passage of such legislation, at the state and national level, has not undermined Roe v. Wade. The most fanatical pro-choicers in the U.S. Senate, from Barbara Boxer to Hillary Clinton, understood this and thus voted in favor of BAIPA. Obama, however, failed to make the crucial distinction.
That does not mean that Obama is a monster who enjoys killing babies, and suggesting so would indeed be “offensive.” At the very least, however, this calls into question his judgment, his experience, and his decision-making abilities—crucial characteristics for a man who wants to be president of the United States.
It is also revealing of his stridency on the abortion issue and blind loyalty to the abortion movement. Barack Obama is to the left of Hillary Clinton on abortion.
Of all the policy areas where Obama could have failed his fellow citizens, this one was pretty darned serious.
Paul Kengor is professor is professor of political science and executive director of the Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College. Jarrett Skorup is a student fellow at the Center for Vision & Values.
Friday, August 8, 2008
Handle With Care: Obama's Abortion Problem
By Paul Kengor & Jarrett Skorup
In both 2000 and 2004, it was the so-called moral-religious “values voters” who were crucial to the election of George W. Bush. It is no secret that the Democrats want those voters in 2008. Barack Obama wants them badly. What stands in his way? For Obama, the problem is not so much the Reverend Jeremiah Wright as it is the issue of abortion — consistently the dominant political-social issue in the eyes of conservative Christians, from evangelical Protestants to devout Catholics. Obama’s abortion problem is a reality that has become especially evident in recent weeks, most notably in his public battle with Focus on the Family’s James Dobson.
But it’s more specific than that. Obama’s problem is not the run-of-the-mill, over-the-top abortion stridency that has come to define the modern Democratic party’s presidential nominee, from Bill Clinton to John Kerry, but specifically his abominable position on the matter of newborn babies who survive abortions.
This subject is beginning to receive publicity even in the mainstream press, as was evident in a recent exchange on CNN between Bill Bennett and Donna Brazile, but we doubt that even the most well-informed observers know the full story. First, some background:
In 2002, Congress passed the Born Alive Infant Protection Act (BAIPA). BAIPA is simple: It establishes that if an abortion is attempted on a fetus and the fetus survives — alas, magically morphing into a “baby” — everything medically possible must be done to save the child. Plainly, if a fetus takes a breath of air outside the womb, personhood has been established, and all persons in America must receive medical care from trained professionals on the scene. Americans are not to be denied emergency medical care.
Such legislation was necessary because of the countless number of times in which babies who survived abortions were not offered medical treatment after Roe v. Wade became the law of the land in 1973. Unknown numbers of these babies — unknown to the would-be mothers, to the medical community, to the general public — were left instead to die alone in a room, typically abandoned to a cold, hard, metal table, or in a trash can, behind closed doors, slowly gasping for air until they perished. Chalk it up as yet another glorious consequence of a woman’s “right to choose.” This China-like human-rights atrocity went on in America for three decades. Mercifully, at long last, Congress finally did something about it by introducing BAIPA in 2002.
In the early stages, the bill was opposed by NARAL and extremist pro-choice groups, but objections ceased as a vote on the bill approached, most likely in anticipation of the public outcry. Yes, even the abortion industry can occasionally smell a bad p.r. move. The bill passed overwhelming in the House, by a margin of 380-15, and unanimously in the Senate, where even the most fanatical abortion-rights advocates — from Barbara Boxer to Hillary Clinton — were on board.
The bill was signed into law by President Bush on August 5, 2002. In attendance was Gianna Jessen, who in 1977 had survived a saline abortion attempt.
Remarking on the rare moment of unanimity was Senator Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.): “I, as being a pro-choice senator on this side, representing my colleagues here, have no problem whatsoever with this.” She added, “I feel good that we can, in fact, vote for this together. It is very rare that we can.” Indeed, it is.
Who could possibly oppose such legislation?
That brings us to Barack Obama, the Democratic party’s presidential candidate for 2008.
At the time that BAIPA went through the U.S. Congress, Obama was a member of the Illinois Senate, meaning, of course, that he could not vote on the federal BAIPA bill. He could, however, vote on such legislation if it were introduced in Illinois, as was being done by state legislatures around the country. That opportunity came when legislation was introduced in the Illinois legislature.
Offering testimony on the Illinois version of BAIPA was an eyewitness to the horror of these “survivor” abortions: Jill Stanek, a nurse from a hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois, who had witnessed several occasions of babies surviving attempted abortions and then being left to die. For Stanek, recalling these episodes is like revisiting a nightmare in painstaking, graphic detail. But Stanek saw her testimony as a necessary evil to what she figured would be a “no-brainer” for Illinois legislators. She would later admit that she had been “naïve.” Her no-brainer met a major, unforeseen obstacle: a committee member named Barack Obama.
From the moment of her testimony, Stanek sensed she was in trouble: She recalled an incident when she was asked to take an aborted Down’s Syndrome baby to the hospital “Soiled Utility Room,” where the “attempted-aborted” babies were sent to take their final breaths. The little boy’s parents did not want to hold him, and none of the other nurses could find the time or bear the agony. Stanek remembers rocking the baby in her arms for the final 45 minutes that he suffered an excruciating life. “He was too weak to move very much,” she remembered, “expending any energy he had trying to breathe. Toward the end, he was so quiet that I couldn’t tell if he was still alive unless I held him up to the light to see if his heart was still beating through his chest wall.”
This incident took place at Christ Hospital, which would fire Stanek for her testimony.
Stanek was struck by Sen. Barack Obama’s cold, non-response to her testimony: Interviewed for this article, she told us that he appeared “unmoved” by her testimony and “even argued against it.” He told her, “What we are doing here is to create one more burden on a woman and I can’t support that.” Perhaps signaling his April 2008 remarks about his daughters, Obama could not imagine these un-desiring mothers being “punished with a baby.”
Obama gazed right past Stanek’s image of a gasping, dying, abandoned, newborn baby and instead saw an over-riding moral imperative: a woman’s “health-care choice.”
In Illinois, in order for a law to be sent to the full House and Senate, it must be approved within committee. The bill had been called up in the Senate Judiciary Committee — twice, in March 2001 and March 2002. Obama was a member of that committee. He first voted “present” on the bill and then later cast a “no” vote. It was there that he argued with Stanek’s testimony.
But that was nothing compared to the more decisive obstruction Obama provided as chair of the Health and Human Services Committee in March 2003, once the Democrats took control of the Illinois Senate. From that perch, Obama prevented the bill from being called up for a vote. In fact, he even refused to allow Stanek to testify orally, though he could not refuse to accept her written testimony. No doubt, Obama must have considered Stanek too persuasive to be permitted to speak.
Flying the flag for the “right to choose,” Obama, as committee chair, ensured that babies who survived abortions in Illinois would not receive emergency medical care, and thus would die. As Obama obstructed, time ticked away, with abortion survivors getting no protection from the state of Illinois and those “medical” providers who swore a Hippocratic Oath.
The gist of much of this has been reported, minus a few details. But what has been neglected is the crucial rest-of-the-story: As evidence of how Barack Obama did not simply oppose this legislation but was its primary if not sole hurdle, consider what happened to the Illinois legislation once Obama left the statehouse: It sailed right through.
In 2004, the people of Illinois elected Barack Obama to the U.S. Senate. This was wonderful news for abortion survivors in the state of Illinois — literally lifesaving. The act was reintroduced in 2005 and passed the Illinois House 116-0 and the Illinois Senate 52-0. Passage of the bill was more unanimous than even BAIPA in the U.S. Congress. Among the members of the Health and Human Services Committee that Obama had previously chaired, none voted against the bill in 2005.
Barack Obama had been totally alone in the Illinois legislature. His lone corner of support in the entire state was the small island of fanatics who make their living literally by killing unborn babies. It is no exaggeration to say that these people, and Barack Obama in solidarity with them, make supporters of partial-birth abortion look compassionate by comparison.
It should be added that Obama had been commended for his obstruction by the president of the Illinois Planned Parenthood Council, Pam Sutherland, who averred, “The legislation was written to ban abortion, plain and simple. Senator Obama saw the legislation, when he was there, for what it was.”
That, of course, is nonsense. This assertion was a classic red herring by the abortion industry. As obvious proof, abortion has not been banned anywhere in Illinois or nationwide with the passage of these laws protecting infants who survive abortions. Hillary Clinton understood that, as did Barbara Boxer, Ted Kennedy, and all of Obama’s current pro-choice colleagues in the U.S. Senate. Why couldn’t Barack Obama figure it out? Such poor decision-making, tragic misjudgment, or outright zealotry, is an important consideration for this frontrunner to become our next president — a man whose platform is about the future, change, and hope.
Democrats, who pride themselves on their alleged compassion, get angry and offended when their party is called the party of death. With Obama at the helm, they will do nothing to change the label. Quite the contrary, with Barack Obama as their voice, they are truly the party that has trashed the little guy.
— Paul Kengor is professor is professor of political science and executive director of the Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College. Jarrett Skorup is a student fellow at the Center for Vision & Values.
This article was first published in National Review Online.
http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=ZDI0MDJiOTM1Zjk0NjUyNWM2NzY3YTdmM2I2MWUyZDM=
In both 2000 and 2004, it was the so-called moral-religious “values voters” who were crucial to the election of George W. Bush. It is no secret that the Democrats want those voters in 2008. Barack Obama wants them badly. What stands in his way? For Obama, the problem is not so much the Reverend Jeremiah Wright as it is the issue of abortion — consistently the dominant political-social issue in the eyes of conservative Christians, from evangelical Protestants to devout Catholics. Obama’s abortion problem is a reality that has become especially evident in recent weeks, most notably in his public battle with Focus on the Family’s James Dobson.
But it’s more specific than that. Obama’s problem is not the run-of-the-mill, over-the-top abortion stridency that has come to define the modern Democratic party’s presidential nominee, from Bill Clinton to John Kerry, but specifically his abominable position on the matter of newborn babies who survive abortions.
This subject is beginning to receive publicity even in the mainstream press, as was evident in a recent exchange on CNN between Bill Bennett and Donna Brazile, but we doubt that even the most well-informed observers know the full story. First, some background:
In 2002, Congress passed the Born Alive Infant Protection Act (BAIPA). BAIPA is simple: It establishes that if an abortion is attempted on a fetus and the fetus survives — alas, magically morphing into a “baby” — everything medically possible must be done to save the child. Plainly, if a fetus takes a breath of air outside the womb, personhood has been established, and all persons in America must receive medical care from trained professionals on the scene. Americans are not to be denied emergency medical care.
Such legislation was necessary because of the countless number of times in which babies who survived abortions were not offered medical treatment after Roe v. Wade became the law of the land in 1973. Unknown numbers of these babies — unknown to the would-be mothers, to the medical community, to the general public — were left instead to die alone in a room, typically abandoned to a cold, hard, metal table, or in a trash can, behind closed doors, slowly gasping for air until they perished. Chalk it up as yet another glorious consequence of a woman’s “right to choose.” This China-like human-rights atrocity went on in America for three decades. Mercifully, at long last, Congress finally did something about it by introducing BAIPA in 2002.
In the early stages, the bill was opposed by NARAL and extremist pro-choice groups, but objections ceased as a vote on the bill approached, most likely in anticipation of the public outcry. Yes, even the abortion industry can occasionally smell a bad p.r. move. The bill passed overwhelming in the House, by a margin of 380-15, and unanimously in the Senate, where even the most fanatical abortion-rights advocates — from Barbara Boxer to Hillary Clinton — were on board.
The bill was signed into law by President Bush on August 5, 2002. In attendance was Gianna Jessen, who in 1977 had survived a saline abortion attempt.
Remarking on the rare moment of unanimity was Senator Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.): “I, as being a pro-choice senator on this side, representing my colleagues here, have no problem whatsoever with this.” She added, “I feel good that we can, in fact, vote for this together. It is very rare that we can.” Indeed, it is.
Who could possibly oppose such legislation?
That brings us to Barack Obama, the Democratic party’s presidential candidate for 2008.
At the time that BAIPA went through the U.S. Congress, Obama was a member of the Illinois Senate, meaning, of course, that he could not vote on the federal BAIPA bill. He could, however, vote on such legislation if it were introduced in Illinois, as was being done by state legislatures around the country. That opportunity came when legislation was introduced in the Illinois legislature.
Offering testimony on the Illinois version of BAIPA was an eyewitness to the horror of these “survivor” abortions: Jill Stanek, a nurse from a hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois, who had witnessed several occasions of babies surviving attempted abortions and then being left to die. For Stanek, recalling these episodes is like revisiting a nightmare in painstaking, graphic detail. But Stanek saw her testimony as a necessary evil to what she figured would be a “no-brainer” for Illinois legislators. She would later admit that she had been “naïve.” Her no-brainer met a major, unforeseen obstacle: a committee member named Barack Obama.
From the moment of her testimony, Stanek sensed she was in trouble: She recalled an incident when she was asked to take an aborted Down’s Syndrome baby to the hospital “Soiled Utility Room,” where the “attempted-aborted” babies were sent to take their final breaths. The little boy’s parents did not want to hold him, and none of the other nurses could find the time or bear the agony. Stanek remembers rocking the baby in her arms for the final 45 minutes that he suffered an excruciating life. “He was too weak to move very much,” she remembered, “expending any energy he had trying to breathe. Toward the end, he was so quiet that I couldn’t tell if he was still alive unless I held him up to the light to see if his heart was still beating through his chest wall.”
This incident took place at Christ Hospital, which would fire Stanek for her testimony.
Stanek was struck by Sen. Barack Obama’s cold, non-response to her testimony: Interviewed for this article, she told us that he appeared “unmoved” by her testimony and “even argued against it.” He told her, “What we are doing here is to create one more burden on a woman and I can’t support that.” Perhaps signaling his April 2008 remarks about his daughters, Obama could not imagine these un-desiring mothers being “punished with a baby.”
Obama gazed right past Stanek’s image of a gasping, dying, abandoned, newborn baby and instead saw an over-riding moral imperative: a woman’s “health-care choice.”
In Illinois, in order for a law to be sent to the full House and Senate, it must be approved within committee. The bill had been called up in the Senate Judiciary Committee — twice, in March 2001 and March 2002. Obama was a member of that committee. He first voted “present” on the bill and then later cast a “no” vote. It was there that he argued with Stanek’s testimony.
But that was nothing compared to the more decisive obstruction Obama provided as chair of the Health and Human Services Committee in March 2003, once the Democrats took control of the Illinois Senate. From that perch, Obama prevented the bill from being called up for a vote. In fact, he even refused to allow Stanek to testify orally, though he could not refuse to accept her written testimony. No doubt, Obama must have considered Stanek too persuasive to be permitted to speak.
Flying the flag for the “right to choose,” Obama, as committee chair, ensured that babies who survived abortions in Illinois would not receive emergency medical care, and thus would die. As Obama obstructed, time ticked away, with abortion survivors getting no protection from the state of Illinois and those “medical” providers who swore a Hippocratic Oath.
The gist of much of this has been reported, minus a few details. But what has been neglected is the crucial rest-of-the-story: As evidence of how Barack Obama did not simply oppose this legislation but was its primary if not sole hurdle, consider what happened to the Illinois legislation once Obama left the statehouse: It sailed right through.
In 2004, the people of Illinois elected Barack Obama to the U.S. Senate. This was wonderful news for abortion survivors in the state of Illinois — literally lifesaving. The act was reintroduced in 2005 and passed the Illinois House 116-0 and the Illinois Senate 52-0. Passage of the bill was more unanimous than even BAIPA in the U.S. Congress. Among the members of the Health and Human Services Committee that Obama had previously chaired, none voted against the bill in 2005.
Barack Obama had been totally alone in the Illinois legislature. His lone corner of support in the entire state was the small island of fanatics who make their living literally by killing unborn babies. It is no exaggeration to say that these people, and Barack Obama in solidarity with them, make supporters of partial-birth abortion look compassionate by comparison.
It should be added that Obama had been commended for his obstruction by the president of the Illinois Planned Parenthood Council, Pam Sutherland, who averred, “The legislation was written to ban abortion, plain and simple. Senator Obama saw the legislation, when he was there, for what it was.”
That, of course, is nonsense. This assertion was a classic red herring by the abortion industry. As obvious proof, abortion has not been banned anywhere in Illinois or nationwide with the passage of these laws protecting infants who survive abortions. Hillary Clinton understood that, as did Barbara Boxer, Ted Kennedy, and all of Obama’s current pro-choice colleagues in the U.S. Senate. Why couldn’t Barack Obama figure it out? Such poor decision-making, tragic misjudgment, or outright zealotry, is an important consideration for this frontrunner to become our next president — a man whose platform is about the future, change, and hope.
Democrats, who pride themselves on their alleged compassion, get angry and offended when their party is called the party of death. With Obama at the helm, they will do nothing to change the label. Quite the contrary, with Barack Obama as their voice, they are truly the party that has trashed the little guy.
— Paul Kengor is professor is professor of political science and executive director of the Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College. Jarrett Skorup is a student fellow at the Center for Vision & Values.
This article was first published in National Review Online.
http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=ZDI0MDJiOTM1Zjk0NjUyNWM2NzY3YTdmM2I2MWUyZDM=
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