by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
March 25, 2008
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Abortion advocates are defending votes Barack Obama cast in the Illinois Senate against a bill that would require medical facilities to provide appropriate medical care to babies who survive botched abortions. One pro-life blogger says the arguments make it less likely Obama will be elected president.
In a recent editorial at the pro-abortion blog RH Reality Check, activist Dana Goldstein writes about a "conservative smear campaign" highlighting Obama's radical pro-abortion position.
Goldstein says the "anti-Obama strategy" is based on Obama's votes against the Illinois Born Alive Infant Protection Act.
That's the measure that helps babies who are victims of botched abortions or left to die without any medical treatment following intentional premature births, otherwise known as induced-birth or live-birth abortions.
Goldstein applauds Obama for voting against the bill, when a federal version passed in the U.S. Senate on a unanimous vote with the support of pro-life and pro-abortion lawmakers.
"It is to Barack Obama's credit that, as an Illinois state senator, he voted against BAIPA twice, and then, as chairman of the Health and Human Services Committee in 2003, prevented it from advancing to the floor," she writes.
She admonishes abortion advocates split between the Obama and Hillary Clinton camps to not attack each other.
Instead, she wants them to understand that pro-life advocates "plan to peel moderate and Republican support away from Obama by painting him as a heartless politician who closed his ears to the cries of 'abortion survivors.'"
But Denny Hartford, a pro-life blogger at Vital Signs, writes that Goldstein is doing the work of pro-life advocates by highlighting Obama's extremist votes that put him well out of the mainstream on abortion.
"Well, he did close his ears to the cries of abortion survivors," Hartford explains. "And, to most Americans, that's as clear and as callous an act of irresponsibility as one could find."
Hartford says "every article that delineates his record on this matter will indeed 'peel' support away from the Illinois Senator."
"In fact, with a few more defenses of Barack Obama of the kind Ms. Goldstein has written, the 'social conservatives' won't have to lift a pen," he concludes.
