Infanticidal Democrats Took Their Cues from Barack Obama

As I’ve pointed out on several other occasions, when it comes to the most significant moral issues of our time, no one should be surprised by immoral actions of modern liberals. You can be saddened, shocked, angry, disgusted, and the like, but you should not be surprised. This is certainly true when it comes to the issue of abortion, and tragically, even when it comes to infanticide.

For decades, democrats have dehumanized the unborn and argued against protecting the most innocent and helpless among us, even when they escaped death in their mother’s womb. In order to further their wicked sexual agenda, democrats at the highest levels have taken some of the most radically gruesome views of life in the womb. No less than Barack Obama, himself, took a position on children who survived abortion that can only be described as infanticide.

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). According to National Right to Life, BAIPA was essentially “a simple two-paragraph proposal – [that] established…for all federal law purposes, any baby who was entirely expelled from his or her mother, and who showed any of the specified signs of life, was to be regarded as a legal person for however long he or she lived, and that this applied whether or not the birth was the result of an abortion or of spontaneous premature labor.”

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.” Because, of course, 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 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 later had to admit that his critics were correct about his voting record.

Obama’s radical—evil—position on infants born alive was widely reported on in the pro-life media. There was even audio of him making his case! Obama’s position was described as infanticide prior to his presidential re-election bid in 2012. He not only won two presidential elections with such evil positions on life, but he was so emboldened that once Obamacare became the law of the land, then President Obama instructed his Department of Health and Human Services to issue its notorious contraception and abortifacient mandate.

As David French noted at the time, “This is who Barack Obama is. There is no reason to be surprised by this. He is not being pulled to extremes by his base — he is the one doing the pulling.” Obama pulled, and along came New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, and Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo. As most now well know, on infanticide, each of these democrat governors has picked up where Obama left off.

It seems clear to me that what immoral democrats in New York passed and what immoral democrats in Virginia and Rhode Island are proposing all violate the federal Born Alive Infant Protection Act. However, as Operation Rescue points out,

Some have postulated that with New York’s new abortion law, crimes committed by late-term abortionist and convicted murderer Kermit Gosnell will now be legal in New York. He was convicted of first-degree murder on three counts of snipping the spinal cords of living newborns who survived abortions at his Philadelphia “House of Horrors” clinic.

That may well be the case.

The Federal Born Alive Infant Protection Act of 2002 mandates that babies born alive during abortions must be cared for as patients. Unfortunately, that act has no enforcement clause, meaning there is no criminal or civil penalty for violating it. Even Kermit Gosnell could not be charged with breaking that law.

The proposed Rhode Island bill, co-sponsored by state Sen. Gayle L. Goldin and Rep. Edith H. Ajello, would, as Life News notes, “strip away even minor, common-sense abortion regulations.” Life News continues,

The bill appears to allow restrictions for late-term abortions, but it adds a broad “health” exception for abortions after viability. The exception would allow women to abort unborn babies up to nine months of pregnancy for basically any “health” reason, including “age, economic, social and emotional factors,” a definition given by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case Doe v. Bolton.

Ajello described protections for unborn babies as “insidiously restrictive, harmful and patriarchal reproductive laws.” Her bill would even repeal the state partial-birth abortion ban and fetal homicide law, which provides justice to pregnant mothers whose unborn babies are killed by abusive partners, drunken drivers or others whose illegal actions cause the death of the unborn baby.

Do you remember our partial-birth abortion debate? With 281 House votes (65%), including 63 democrats, and 64 Senate votes (that’s 64% for you math-challenged folks), including 17 democrats, and President Bush’s signature, in 2003 the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban became law. Twice Bill Clinton vetoed similar bills, and while a partial-birth abortion ban was finally being passed at the federal level, state senator Barack Obama was opposing the Illinois version of a partial-birth abortion ban.

When he arrived in the U.S. Senate, Obama denounced the U.S. Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision to uphold the ban. In the months prior to the 2008 U.S. Presidential election, then candidate Barack Obama said, “The first thing I’ll do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA).” FOCA, as co-sponsor Barbara Boxer described, “supersedes any law, regulation or local ordinance that impinges on a woman’s right to choose.”

As Rich Lowry described FOCA in Politico,

The act would enshrine in federal law a right to abortion more far-reaching than in Roe v. Wade and eliminate basically all federal and state-level restrictions on abortion. This isn’t a point its supporters contest; it’s one they brag about. The National Organization for Women says it would “sweep away hundreds of anti-abortion laws [and] policies.”

Look for the next democrat nominee for POTUS to make a pledge similar to Obama’s. Whether Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Corey Booker, Andrew Cuomo, and the like, it seems that all of the candidates seeking to replace Barack Obama at the head of the Democrat Party will continue his wicked war on the unborn.

(See this column at American Thinker.)

 Copyright 2019, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of the The Miracle and Magnificence of America
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Why is the Catholic Church Surprised?

In the months prior to the 2008 U.S. Presidential election, then candidate Barack Obama said, “The first thing I'll do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA).” FOCA, as co-sponsor Barbara Boxer described, “supersedes any law, regulation or local ordinance that impinges on a woman’s right to choose. That means a poor woman cannot be denied the use of Medicaid if she chooses to have an abortion.”

Back in December of 2008, just after Obama’s election as U.S. President (winning 54% of the Catholic vote), I noted that, according to New York Post columnist Ray Kerrison, Obama’s commitment to the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) “dominated [the U.S. Catholic Bishops’] discussions at their annual convention in Baltimore last month.”

In his column Kerrison said that FOCA “would also compel taxpayers to fund abortions and provide abortions in military hospitals. Most provocatively of all, it would force religious hospital and health-care institutions to perform abortions in violation of their convictions.”

Kerrison added that, “If President-elect Barack Obama goes through with his campaign pledge to sign into law the Freedom of Choice Act, holy hell is going to break loose.” He concluded that, “FOCA means war.”

Of course, FOCA never made it out of Congress. Thus, Obama never got the chance to keep his pledge to sign the infamous bill, and the “war” with the Catholic Church had to wait a few years.

Furthermore, while a member of the Illinois state Senate, Obama opposed a bill that mirrored the federal Born-Alive Infants Protection Act (BAIPA). He took to the floor and 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?!)

The Catholic Church teaches that health care is “a basic human right,” and has been very supportive of the idea of the U.S. federal government implementing universal healthcare. Enter Obamacare. For months leading up to the final passage of Obamacare, Catholic Bishops lobbied heavily for its passage—minus federal funding of abortion. Once House Speaker Nancy Pelosi agreed to add the Stupak amendment to the House version of Obamacare, the Bishops were onboard.

Though the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops opposed the version of Obamacare that passed (because of the removal of the Stupak amendment), they did not support GOP efforts to repeal it once republicans took control of congress. Also, some Catholic leaders supported Obamacare in spite of the lack of the Stupak amendment.

Regardless of previous positions on Obamacare, and in spite of Obama’s recent retreat, the Catholic Church is now in an all out war with the Obama administration over contraception. This begs the questions, why the outrage now? What did they expect?

In other words, there was no reason to believe that Obama was going to be anything other that a radical liberal on social issues. The time for “war” with Obama was BEFORE he was elected leader of the free world. However, in partnering with democrats and liberals, it seems that many within the leadership of the Catholic Church have for far too long been willing to violate my proverb that, “It is no act of charity to be generous with someone else’s money.”

Or, as Paul Rahe recently put it, the American Catholic Church decades ago “fell prey to a conceit that had long before ensnared a great many mainstream Protestants in the United States – the notion that public provision is somehow akin to charity – and so they fostered state paternalism and undermined what they professed to teach: that charity is an individual responsibility and that it is appropriate that the laity join together under the leadership of the Church to alleviate the suffering of the poor.”

The contraception mandate is classic example of “state paternalism.” It is exactly what one gets when the people surrender that kind of power to their government. If liberals remain in power, the result will be no different when the issue comes to marriage or any other matter precious to Christians and other like-minded Americans.

Left unfettered, the slow creep of liberalism knows no bounds. As Mark Steyn recently noted, “In Sweden, expressing a moral objection to homosexuality is illegal, even on religious grounds, even in church…In Canada, the courts rule that Catholic schools must allow gay students to take their same-sex dates to the prom.”

Elections have consequences. If Americans continue in their willingness to surrender more of their liberty in order to receive another entitlement, we will even further embolden those, who, while claiming to serve us, are seeking to become our masters.

(See this column on American Thinker.)

Copyright 2012, Trevor Grant Thomas

At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Obama’s Healthcare Hypocrisy

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.

Copyright 2008, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Obama and the “Least of These”

A few days ago when Barack Obama was “Back in the Saddle” with Rick Warren, Obama uttered what was one of the most hypocritical statements ever offered by an American politician. When Obama was asked by Warren what he thought was, “the greatest moral failure of America,” he responded with, “I think America’s greatest moral failure in my lifetime has been that we still don’t abide by that basic precept in Matthew that whatever you do for the least of my brothers, you do for me…”

In describing “the least of us,” Obama mentioned poverty, racism, and sexism. Sadly, the unborn failed to make his list. This is not surprising, given Obama’s vile record on abortion. It has now been clearly demonstrated (see here for National Right to Life’s detailed account) 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).

According to National Right to Life, BAIPA was essentially “a simple two-paragraph proposal – [that] established…for all federal law purposes, any baby who was entirely expelled from his or her mother, and who showed any of the specified signs of life, was to be regarded as a legal person for however long he or she lived, and that this applied whether or not the birth was the result of an abortion or of spontaneous premature labor.”

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 anti-abortion 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.

The hypocrisy of Obama’s “least of these” comment at Saddleback is beyond the pale. Whatever moral causes he chooses to champion, nothing compares to the helplessness of a newborn child. In other words there is nothing more “least” than an infant. Obama’s unwillingness to stand for these, along with his attempted deception in the matter, should give any voter great pause.

Copyright 2008, Trevor Grant Thomas

At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com