- Posted by Christopher Estep on November 4, 2008
This country was founded on 3 things: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. See that first one there? That’s right, Life.
Normally, pro-abortion politicians don’t scare me in that regard. Bill Clinton didn’t and others don’t. But Barack Obama is different. Barack Obama has taken a stand on life viz. abortion that no United States senator has ever done.
While a member of the Illinois state senate, Obama opposed a bill that would require doctors to care for an infant if an abortion failed, i.e. if the child lived through the procedure and was alive outside of the womb.
So there’s no misunderstanding, let me give you an example. Suppose a woman goes into a clinic or hospital and gets a third-trimester abortion. In the process, the doctor fails to “eliminate” the fetus inside the womb and a live baby is delivered instead. What’s the status of the baby?
Obama’s position was (and remains, he hasn’t changed it) that the baby (note that this isn’t a fetus anymore) can have no claim on the doctor for basic life support. The doctor has no responsibility to do so much as cover the child with a blanket or put it in an incubator. The doctor and staff should be permitted (according to Obama) to place the child in another room whereupon the child would die without life-support, in essence completing the abortion ex utero.
Among other things, Obama said of the bill:
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.
Pay attention to the bolded phrase. Obama saw this bill as one that gave rights rather than protected ones that already exist. What’s most chilling is that he has no problem speaking about the government determining whether or not something is a child.
Most of the abortion debate has centered around “when does life begin?” but you’ll notice that Obama isn’t asking that. He sees life as beginning whenever the government says it does.
The fundamental problem isn’t even one of abortion but rather of governmental power. Obama doesn’t see basic rights as something that exist but rather something that the government defines. He defends the idea that a failed aborted child is not indeed a child because government has said it is.
Everyone should be afraid of someone who has supported the power of government to define human existence to determine whether or not it has rights. It is precisely what was done to permit abuses under slavery. Government decided that blacks weren’t equally human and therefore not entitled to rights that a human would have.
Next up: Gun Control