Obama: Healthcare a “Right”

Obama’s Healthcare Hypocrisy

by Trevor Thomas

October 8, 2008

So, Barack Obama, as he stated in his second debate with John McCain, thinks that healthcare is a “right for every American.” John McCain should have taken the opportunity and clarified that Senator Obama sees healthcare as a “right” for only those Americans who were not born alive during a botched abortion. The hypocrisy here is almost too much to bear.

As I pointed out in a previous column, it has been clearly demonstrated that Obama, while a member of the Illinois state Senate, opposed multiple versions of an Illinois bill that mirrored the federal Born-Alive Infants Protection Act (BAIPA).

In 2000 the original BAIPA was passed by the U.S. House by a vote of 380 to 15. This occurred in spite of opposition by the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL). Even staunch pro-abortion leaders, such as Jerrold Nadler, ignored the NARAL position and supported BAIPA. This version of BAIPA was later killed in the Senate by an objection to unanimous consent.

In 2001 the Illinois legislature took up a bill that was patterned after the federal BAIPA. Obama voted against this bill in committee. On the floor of the Illinois Senate, he later gave the only speech against the bill, saying, “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.” (What?! We need the “equal protection clause” to tell us that we shouldn’t kill our children?!)

Obama finally, and “boldly,” voted “present” on the bill, which had the same effect as voting “no.” The bill passed the Illinois senate but died in a house committee. The scene pretty much repeated itself in 2002, this time with Obama voting “no.”

In 2002 a “neutrality clause” was added to the federal BAIPA. This clause basically said that, as far as federal law was concerned, legal protection could not be construed upon a human being prior to being “born alive.” This effectively protected Roe. The bill unanimously passed both houses of Congress and was signed into law by President Bush in 2002.

Obama is on the record saying that he would have supported the Illinois bill had it contained the neutrality clause. In October of 2004, the Chicago Tribune reported, “Obama said that had he been in the U.S. Senate two years ago, he would have voted for the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act…”

However, in 2003 the exact language of the federal neutrality clause was added to the Illinois bill making it virtually identical to the federal BAIPA. In March of 2003, Obama chaired an Illinois Senate committee and led the Democrats on that committee to kill the amended bill.

In attempting to blunt the extremism of his abortion record, Obama has stated time and again that the lack of a neutrality clause was all that was preventing him from supporting the Illinois bill. When he was called out on the matter, Obama accused individuals and institutions of lying about his record. His campaign has since had to admit that his critics were correct about his voting record.

Whatever moral causes (such as “universal healthcare”) Senator Obama chooses to champion, nothing compares to the helplessness of a newborn child. Obama’s unwillingness to stand for these, along with his attempted deception in the matter, should give any voter great pause.