Pro-Life Group Preparing Big Ad Assault Charging Obama Allowed Babies To Die
A leading pro-life organization is preparing to unleash a scathing radio ad campaign across the country charging that Barack Obama's position on abortion is "extreme" and that he, in effect, allowed babies to die.
The ad charges that Obama killed a measure in Illinois that would have protected the lives of babies who survive abortions.
The group, the National Right to Life Committee, has filed a request for an advisory opinion from the FEC as to whether the ads are within FEC rules, and their request letter lays out the text of the spots. You can read the letter here.
"Barack Obama was responsible for killing a bill to provide care and protection for babies who are born alive after abortions," the spot runs. It charges that Obama subsequently lied about his record on the measure.
National Right to Life's letter informs the FEC that the group intends to "immediately" begin broadcasting the ad "throughout the United States" and to continue broadcasting it right up until the election. The group is politically potent and its FEC filings suggest it has the resources to make good on its threat.
Obama has been under fire from this group for some time. The issue in question is Illinois' Born Alive Infant Protection Act, which Obama opposed, prompting the group to attack him for callously being willing to let babies die. Obama and his campaign have forcefully dismissed the group's assertions as lies, saying he voted against it because the measure it purported to outlaw was already illegal and was crafted just to undermine Roe v. Wade.
In its letter, the group is arguing to the FEC that the ad doesn't constitute a prohibited "electioneering communication" under campaign finance law, claiming that this isn't merely an assault on Obama. Rather, it says, the spot is a response to Obama's earlier assertion that the group had lied about his record on the issue.
In other words, like other third party groups looking for loopholes, the spot appears to be an effort to get around campaign finance law and unleash a heavy national assault on Obama over abortion under the guise of responding to his earlier comments on it. The FEC has yet to rule on the case.
National Right to Life didn't return calls. The script of the ad is after the jump.
Female 1: In August, National Right to Life released documents proving that in 2003, Barack Obama was responsible for killing a bill to provide care and protection for babies who are born alive after abortions, and that he later misrepresented the bill's content. When journalist David Brody asked Obama about National Right to Life's charges, Obama replied:Obama [clip]: "...I hate to say that people are lying, but here's a situation where folks are lying."
Female 1: We challenged Obama to admit that the documents are genuine, and admit to his previous misrepresentations. FactCheck[dot]org then investigated, and concluded:
Female 2 (detached, clinical voice): "Obama's claim is wrong...The documents...support the group's claims that Obama is misrepresenting the contents of [Senate bill] 1082."
Female 1: Was Obama afraid that the public would learn about his extreme position -- that he opposed merely defining every baby born alive after an abortion as deserving of protection? Will Obama now apologize for calling us liars when we were the ones telling the truth?
I'm so tired of crap like this. . .
October 2, 2008 12:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Newsflash---
John McCain's Presidential Campaign has just been found in the wreckage of Steve Fossett's plane in the Sierra Nevada mountains.
"This explains a lot," said the County Sheriff. "With that amount of baggage, it's a wonder that plane was even able to get airborne. The 527 ads must've been the last straw."
October 2, 2008 12:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
That made me chuckle. Thanks.
October 2, 2008 12:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
ROTFLMAO
October 2, 2008 2:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
National Right to Lie.
October 2, 2008 12:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
That is too good!!!
October 2, 2008 12:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hm, I am surprised that this has not come up earlier. The optics on this vote look bad for Sen Obama, quite regardless of his reasons for voting as he did. Assuming that the FEC lets it run, I am afraid that he will simply have to take his lumps on this score. Fortunately, in the bigger picture I doubt that even many pro-life swing votes will be swayed by this approach. The economy is simply too troubled for many of these swing voters to pay attention to the life issue this year.
October 2, 2008 12:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're opposed to abortion, I believe.
Lumps my ass.
There's no such thing and the anti-choice crusaders have lied about this for years.
This entire fucking thing is a lie from start to finish - they set up the situation with that statute in the first place.
I'm fucking fed up with these people like you wouldn't believe = t
October 2, 2008 12:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, that is correct.
There is no political liability whatever to supporting abortion rights? Surely you do not mean that. Clearly there are voting blocs which were once solidly democratic who have morphed into swing blocs because of their distaste for the Democratic platform vis-a-vis abortion rights. Of course the reverse is also true; there are blocs which once used to be solidly Republican which have become swing votes because they are turned off by the Republican approach to this issue. Still and all, I think it is ludicrous to suggest that Obama could not possible take any sort of hit whatever for this vote. As I have already said, I doubt that it will be a severe hit under the circumstances, but "lumps my ass" seems rather an exaggeration.
October 2, 2008 12:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Every person opposed to abortion should be ready to step up and help support a child to adulthood. That's putting your money where you mouth is. No disrespect meant. Truly, no woman ever gets pregnant for the purpose of having an abortion. I completely respect where you're coming from. We all want children to be born and wanted. Sometimes other things interfere.
Bless you for your stand.
October 2, 2008 12:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
For whatever little it is worth, dear TheraP, I agree with you on this point.
October 2, 2008 1:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
I thought you would. And with Barack, we're going to try and do that. Going to try and make it easier for a single mom, say, to have a kid and name him Barack.
October 2, 2008 1:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Your moralism that anyone opposing abortion should step up and financially support mother and child has some serious problems.
First, you assume that the actual parents are not responsible for the child in the womb. And that assumption is social-irresponsibility welfare giving a pass to those folks who play but don't want to pay in the great majority of abortions. You treat responsibility as if it would kill the poor folks who just wanted to have a good time. Wake up or you'll continue supporting the behavior of irresponsibility that makes abortion an industry.
Second, you also assume that functional people who take responsibility for their actions and risks should enable dysfunctional people who don't when they have sex then dismiss their responsibility for what happens; whether it be spreading VD or letting another person kill their son or daughter as if it wasn't real because they couldn't see it happen and he/she was in a dependent, less developed state of being. Yet human being they were.
Third: if you grant that pro-lifers believe what they say, that life begins at conception, then what you are arguing here would be like arguing that those who oppose murder should be ready to step up and financially support the victims to avoid their destruction.
Fourth: you do not, nor have I seen other Dems admit, that this is mercenary killing not unlike killing folks for their mineral wealth, directly or indirectly.
October 2, 2008 11:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
There's no such thing as live fetuses being produced by abortions, Missouri. The statute was based on a pack of lies.
That's what I'm talking about - no such thing. It's an attempt to boostrap something that can be used ultimately to shut down abortions. And it's based completely on a LIE and a MYTH.
October 2, 2008 12:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Cite your data, its source and its date of collection.
October 2, 2008 11:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ok...here are the facts with the citations you wanted I hope. Anyway this should clear it up for you some. If not I can get more if you need it. There was already a law on the books, that is why he voted against this law and by voting for this law it could have cause harm to other laws due to the language that was in it.
Just as there is "pork" in so many laws that are passed sometimes laws are passed with language in them that are against other laws, this is a classic example. This is also why in some instances in the state of Illinois Obama voted "Present" which he catches flack for. This is neither a vote for nor against but a vote to table the bill for discussion, so that it can then be reworded to change or fix something that is wrong. However that has been used against him so much in the election so far. Education is a key thing to understanding so much and we as citizens should educate ourselves instead of depending on these ads and stump speeches to get our reasons to decide who we are going to vote for.
1. FACT
Illinois Law Stated That A Doctor Must Preserve The Life And Health Of A Fetus If In The Course Of An Abortion, There Is Reasonable Likelihood Of Sustained Survival. The Illinois Compiled Statutes stated that any physician who intentionally performs an abortion when, in his medical judgment 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, shall utilize that method of abortion which, of those he knows to be available, is in his medical judgment most likely to preserve the life and health of the fetus. No abortion shall be performed or induced when the fetus is viable unless there is in attendance 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. Subsequent to the abortion, if a child is born alive, the physician required to be in attendance shall exercise the same degree of professional skill, care and diligence to preserve the life and health of the child as would be required of a physician providing immediate medical care to a child born alive in the course of a pregnancy termination which was not an abortion. Violation of these statutes constituted a Class 3 felony. [Illinois Compiled Statutes, 720 ILCS 510/6]
2. FACT
Republican Bill Sponsor Said “None Of Those Who Voted Against SB-1082 Favored Infanticide.” Rick Winkel, a Republican former state senator who sponsored the “Born Alive” bill, wrote in a Letter to the Editor, “None of those who voted against SB-1082 favored infanticide.” [Chicago Tribune, Winkel LTE, 9/5/08]
October 3, 2008 7:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't understand your point. There are one issue voters on both sides of the issue.
October 2, 2008 12:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
The single issue voters do not really enter into my point. They are not swing voters. My point is that there are swing voters who like many democratic platform planks but dislike the abortion plank. Playing up the democratic abortion plank serves to sour these folks on the democratic candidate. That is what I mean by "lumps." As I have sought to make clear, I doubt that this ad will actually serve that end very effectively, but respectfully submit that Tena is off base to suggest that there are no liabilities to Sen Obama's vote on this bill ("lumps my ass").
October 2, 2008 12:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
My point is that I am not convinced there are any net lumps, if you'll pardon the expression, and, regardless I definitely do not believe there is a lump-free answer. There's no ducking this issue, you have to choose one side or the other knowing you'll lose some people no matter what you do (even if what you do is try to duck it).
October 2, 2008 2:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Remember, this bill was not presented (nor will it be portrayed in the ad) as an attempt to restrict abortion. This bill was proposed in response to the work of a one-time abortion clinic nurse, Jill Stanek, who alleged that she had participated in an abortion wherein the fetus was brought out, alive and intact from the woman's body and left to die on a table in another room. The bill purported to outlaw such occurances.
Do you mean to suggest that there are equal numbers of swing voters who would favor such happenings in clinics as there are swing voters who would oppose such happenings? I guess that I find that hard to believe. I expect that there are net lumps against the fellow who would oppose such a bill, although as I have tried to make clear, I expect that the net margin, while not zero, will be very small.
October 2, 2008 2:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
I wonder, Missouri, do you support the postpartum abortions committed during Bush's War for Oil? In case you don't understand what a postpartum abortion is, it is the killing of human life AFTER it has been born. The Iraqi War for Oil has resulted in nearly 1 million such abortions.
October 2, 2008 12:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Er, no. I was against the war from before it even started and have continued to be against it at all points since, in no small measure precisely because of the loss of innocent life that has been engendered by the war. Why would you suppose that I might be in favor of the war?
October 2, 2008 1:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Missouri voter -- I salute you for an honest position. I have been doing a lot of canvassing and phone calling and there are a significant number of voters with deeply held beliefs that abortion is a sin. Those same beliefs also make them uneasy supporting McCain and a continuation of war and belligerence in foreign policy and economic injustice at home. They are definitely swing voters that we need to continue to talk with and treat with respect.
I've pointed some toward a book and articles by Douglas Kmiec, an observant Catholic and conservative leader, who has endorsed Obama on moral grounds: http://www.slate.com/id/2184378/
I don't agree with Kmiec on much else, and I know there are those who have even objected to Obama accepting his support. But to me the whole point of Obama's attempt to change the way politics are done in this country is to increase dialog, especially with those that we disagree with, and certainly not to smother differences in some newly forged consensus with rudeness and disrespect.
October 2, 2008 3:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Do remember that being opposed to abortion does not necessarily make one anti-choice. Virginia's governor, Tim Kaine, is personally opposed to abortion, but he also does not seek to outlaw it. In fact, he used abortion as an issue against his Republican opponent when he ran for governor, accusing Jerry Kilgore of wanting to make women and doctors who participated in abortions criminals.
October 2, 2008 1:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is no such thing as a Pro-Life undecided voter, IMO. This ad does nothing but turn off the real undecideds who are sick to death of wedge issues. Nothing looks more petty at a time like this than a "you allowed babies to die" ad.
Next.
October 2, 2008 12:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
On this point I know you are wrong, because I actually know more than a few pro-life undecideds and am working them hard to come over to vote for Obama.
In case I was not clear above, I am in broad agreement with you on this point. I doubt that such an ad will cost Obama many votes. A few, but most folks have other things on their minds right now.
October 2, 2008 12:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
I disagree with you on choice, but keep up the good work, both in exploding stereotype and winning over undecideds on economic grounds.
October 2, 2008 12:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
If a fetus is born alive, it's a baby and entitled to protection under laws against murder. It's ridiculous to have additional legislation complicating this very simple fact.
October 2, 2008 12:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
NO FETUSES ARE BORN ALIVE YOU NITWIT
October 2, 2008 12:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
My point was, and I agree with you, that no fetuses are born alive because they are not fetuses. If a baby is born, it's entitled to legal protection under murder laws. I agree with you - a "fetus" is not entitled to protection until it becomes a baby, and we already have laws on the books protecting babies. Don't call me a nitwit merely because you don't understand my point.
October 2, 2008 12:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry - I do get steamed over this. The lie is so pernicious.
October 2, 2008 1:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dude...you guys are up in the polls...Biden will wipe the floor with Palin tonight...relax....you've been in a foul mood all day...enjoy the good times... who knows what will happen in the next month.
October 2, 2008 2:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you.
October 2, 2008 1:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's no matter. It will be completely lost in the noise of the last five weeks including the country's economic crisis and the fact that my cleaning lady makes a better VP candidate than Palin.
October 2, 2008 12:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Whoa, A Missouri voter.
It DOES matter why Obama voted as he did.
"What Senator Obama’s attackers don’t tell you is that existing Illinois law already requires doctors to provide medical care in the very rare case that babies are born alive during abortions. They will not tell you that Obama voted against these laws in Illinois because they were clear attempts to undermine Roe v. Wade. They will not tell you that these laws were also opposed by pro-choice Republicans and the Illinois Medical Society – a leading association of doctors in the state."
And though I firmly support a woman's right to choose, I'm kind of flabbergasted (since you are anti-abortion) that you claim the economy is in such straights - the issue of LIFE will have to go to the back burner now.
If you genuinely have the strength of your convictions, how can the dollar trump "life"?
October 2, 2008 12:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Life isn't on the back burner. We've been trying to stop the postpartum abortions that have been occurring in Iraq since the beginning of the Iraqi War for Oil.
Just wondering ... exactly HOW MANY of these living abortions occur per year? What is the comparison against the number of postpartum abortions carried out with guns every year?
Pro life? I don't think so.
October 2, 2008 1:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
To be very clear, dear 714Day, I did not say that the economy trumps the life issue in determining my vote. I expressed the opinion that the economy will trump the life issue in the minds of a broad mass of swing voters (I am not, nor have I ever been, a swing voter; I am a reliable and partisan democrat).
If this, however, is an indirect question as to why I, a self-professed pro-lifer, vote democratic, I will obliged you with an answer - I do not believe that the Republicans are really any more eager to end legal abortion in this country than are the Democrats. Of the five pro-Roe justices on the court, 3 are Republican appointees (until the recent retirement of Justice O'Connor that ratio was even more stark; 4 of the 6 pro-Roe justices were Republican appointees). The court which handed down Roe was predominantly appointed by Republicans and the court has, at all times since, remained predominantly composed of Republican appointees. If the Republicans were really serious about over-turning Roe it would already be done. I am convinced that the Republicans are merely playing pro-lifers for dupes and that the life-issue is not really on the table at the moment. With that unhappy conclusion in mind, I do not give it much thought when deciding for whom to vote. Evidently there is still much work to be done (from my point of view) changing the minds of average voters before the law can be changed on this issue.
October 2, 2008 1:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am not prone to asking anything in a sub-rosa fashion, but I appreciate your sincere effort to elucidate your position. I will not be convinced that a return to any curtailment of a woman's right to choose to control her own body is anything less than a horror story.
I am old enough to remember back street abortions. I knew a desperate 15 year old back in the day... I won't tell you her story, though it profoundly affected all of us who shared in the tragedy. She didn't have a 16th birthday; that says enough.
I was raised Catholic myself and I knew few Catholic woman who didn't use birth control pills as soon as they hit the scene and still do, of course, to prevent pregnancy. Of course, Catholic dogma would say that that is "killing", too. The Catholics I know decide what works for them and still receive communion every Sunday
The issue regarding when life begins is, at worst, debatable for the rational mind.
However, what I think is beside the point when someone else has to deal with the reality of this heart rending circumstance. Then it is not my business at all.
And when I say I'm pro choice in a forum where abortion is the matter at hand, I don't mean someone's right to select ham on rye or a patty melt.
There is no choice involved if a pregnancy MUST be carried to term. That's a mandate. It's pro authoritarian, not pro life.
October 3, 2008 8:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
As I read it, Missouri voter wasn't saying that it didn't matter logically why Obama voted as he did, but that even very good reasons for that vote do little to blunt the emotional impact of that kind of advertisement.
By the way, am I remembering correctly that when the legislation in question was changed to address the Constitutional issues that Obama and others raised, that its right-to-life proponents then voted against it?
October 2, 2008 1:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dead-on, Missouri. I honestly don't think an ad on this subject would make any difference even if it had video of Obama actually performing an abortion. On a 10-year-old.
The few people left who are basing their 2008 vote on abortion are already six feet up Bible Spice's colon and don't need any more persuading.
This is a Dead Issue Walking. I say let National Right to Lie spend 10 zillion bucks running this ad everywhere nonstop forever until they're broke and terminally in debt.
It's over, asshats. You lost.
October 2, 2008 1:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
lol... well said, goddamnit. Well fucking said. With apologies for the language, I just cannot express how utterly disgusted I am with the droolers who demagogue this issue in such ways.
October 2, 2008 1:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, this article from factcheck.org puts the lie to the advertising claim, to wit: if a fetus delivered during a late-term abortion is determined to be viable, it is a felony under existing Illinois law for the doctor to allow that fetus to die.
That being the case, the arguments on this issue in this thread and the arguments presented by the Right to Birth organization are false, and at the very least, the Right to Birth people know they're false. Whether or not the proponents of this theory on this thread are knowledgeable about the facts is unknown to me.
Born Alive
Thanks.
mp
October 2, 2008 4:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here comes the Republican attack machines right on que.
October 2, 2008 12:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
All this does is remind women that the other side will take away their right to choose -- and maybe even breathe. "Culture of Life" my ass!
October 2, 2008 12:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am sure that is one thing that such an ad will do. I doubt that this is all that it will do, however. The bill in question would not have curtailed a woman's ability to have an abortion in Illinois. It simply provided that if, somehow, the child survived the process of being extracted from the mother's body, it would no longer be permissible in Illinois simply to let it die. In other words, the bill prevented the killing of babies outside the womb, not of fetuses within the womb. This is the sort of thing for which broad social consensus exists, even among people who otherwise support abortion rights. Sen Obama's opposition to this bill just will not look good to a broad mass of voters. As I said above, however, I am skeptical that the sort of voters who might be moved by this ad will be receptive to it in the particular circumstances in which we find ourselves right now.
October 2, 2008 12:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, I think you're right. The problem is that Obama has to describe to voters that he voted against the bill because of a whole other set of issues that voting for the bill would have raised. The problem with the ad, though, is that they want you to believe that Obama wants to kill live babies, which most people are just not going to believe. People have seen and heard Obama, and they do not think he is radical. And he is a very loving family man, etc. I just think that ultimately abortion is not going to be a huge issue this year.
October 2, 2008 12:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
I meant to post this comment under this portion of the thread: when a fetus is born alive it's a baby, and if someone kills it, it's called "murder". Already lots of laws about that.
October 2, 2008 12:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes - I left you an apology upthread.
October 2, 2008 1:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Unless they are Muslim Extremists. Then it's probably ok.
October 2, 2008 1:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly. I have been wrong in the past, but I would be very surprised if this sort of ad strategy can gain much traction against Sen Obama. It is too late in the game to paint him as some sort of murderous zealot and meanwhile the economy is too obvious an issue to distract folks with more waving-the-bloody-shirt-in-the-culture-wars campaigning.
October 2, 2008 12:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Too late in the game. I agree.
I totally applaud your stand here. I respect you all the more.
October 2, 2008 1:05 PM | Reply | Permalink