Talk:Barack Obama/Abortion Policy

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Defenses/Criticisms?

I am unsure how to approach this right now. There are some major book criticisms like Corsi's best-selling "The Obama Nation" which should be provided, so I think there should be a criticisms section. I'd be willing to provide a 'Defenses' section also for Obama's statements defending himself against these claims, or his FighttheSmears website (I already provided a major link to his defenses, but also provided an NRLC link arguing against it - trying to be neutral and show both sides). The trouble is, some of his defenses are easily debunked and false, so then one has to worry about how to address the public falsehoods of them. For example, Obama got caught in a major lie and his campaign finally confessed to it, when he said the Illinois Born Alive Infants Protection Act wasn't the same as the federal bill of the same name. FactCheck.org admitted he'd "distorted" that claim in the article, "Obama and 'Infanticide'" which I provided in External Articles. When his campaign admitted to this, it was all over the press.[1][2][3][4]

Obama was also addressing it, because of how major an issue it was.[5][6]

Another claim he made on his FighttheSmears website was that the Illinois Senator, Richard Winkel, said he didn't support infanticide, and that proved the claims were false.[7]

Problem is, Time Magazine's Real Clear Politics then caught him in this lie, and reposted the original letter by Winkel.[8] The letter shows that Winkel did indeed say none who opposed the bill favored infanticide, but because his quote was taken out of context, what wasn't seen was that he said, "None of those who voted against SB-1082 favored infanticide. Rather their zeal for pro-choice dogma was clearly the overriding force behind their negative votes rather than concern that my bill would protect babies who are born alive." So in other words, he didn't say they didn't support children being born alive and left to die - just that it was their pro-abortion zeal that led them to have the effect of supporting infanticide, even if they didn't actually support it.

Anyway, those are the 2 examples I'm mainly thinking of. So, do you see my problem? If I create a defenses section, I could be presenting Obama defenses that are already debunked, or which he's already admitted to lying about. Therefore, it gets tricky trying to present his defenses because then I have to go into how some have already been addressed by FactCheck.org and Real Clear Politics, or how his campaign afterwards admitted he was wrong about them. --Jzyehoshua 15:11, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

I have decided it's too historically vital and too crucial to keeping this impartial to not provide a section for Obama's defenses. However, I am also providing the historical context for when they are debunked. As seen, I will of course continue my typical practice of not mentioning facts that can't be well sourced, reporting only on that which is noticeably prominent and reliably sourced. --Jzyehoshua 16:11, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

explaining edit

Obamanation is not a reliable source. Also, the presentation of information here left out key information. Lisa

Alright, that can be removed then. Corsi did make some questionable claims in the book, I mentioned it more because of notability, and because of its mention on the 'On the Issues' page. I just went with their book references, and have no problem leaving it out. --Jzyehoshua 21:32, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
Also, I see you're getting into the next controversy I was going to address, the replacement one he used after the last was debunked. After caught in the misstatement previously mentioned, the NY Sun reported, "His campaign yesterday acknowledged that he had voted against an identical bill in the state Senate, and a spokesman, Hari Sevugan, said the senator and other lawmakers had concerns that even as worded, the legislation could have undermined existing Illinois abortion law. Those concerns did not exist for the federal bill, because there is no federal abortion law."[9]
This is what FactCheck.org is referring to, the replacement claim. The trouble with this is that it's not the claim he gave on the floor of the Illinois Senate when opposing the Illinois bill. The FactCheck.org article quotes the Illinois Senate transcript for the Illinois Born Alive Infants Protection Act (pp. 84-90). Obama's exact words from the transcript can be seen here in this Media Matters article, for instance.
As seen from the transcript, Obama readily acknowledged what the bill was intended to do, since he began by verifying its purpose, "Senator O'Malley, the testimony during the committee indicated that one of the key concerns was - is that there was a method of abortion, an induced abortion, where the -- the fetus or child, as - as some might describe it, is still temporarily alive outside the womb. And one of the concerns that came out in the testimony was the fact that they were not being properly cared for during that brief period of time that they were still living. Is that correct?"
Time Magazine pointed to one segment of those statements as his rationale for opposing medical care of previable fetuses that survive late-term abortions: "Whenever we define a previable fetus as a person that is protected by the equal-protection clause or the other elements in the Constitution, what we're really saying is, in fact, that they are persons that are entitled to the kinds of protections that would be provided to a child, a 9-month-old child that was delivered to term," he said. "That determination then, essentially, if it was accepted by a court, would forbid abortions to take place. I mean, 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."[10]
Therefore, it would seem some of Obama's rationale was that they were 'previable fetuses' since even though outside the womb and capable of survival if cared for, they had not been born to a full "9-month" term. Would you like me to find more sources before quoting the transcript? I have another Illinois Senate transcript link with his exact words as well, the Induced Birth Infants Liability Act transcript (pp. 29-35) where it's further seen that he thought the decision of whether the child needed care should be left to a single abortion physician rather than requiring by law a 2nd physician verify it's not capable of survival.
Anyway, I'm just trying to follow your lead here, whatever sourcing you say is required I'll try to provide, and not provide material unless the sourcing standards are met. If you'd prefer the transcripts only be provided as links and words not mentioned verbatim, only their interpretation by major press sources like FactCheck.org given, that'd be fine too. --Jzyehoshua 21:48, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
The transcripts were for me always the smoking gun of seeing why he stood where he did on the issue, but I realize from a sourcing standpoint they may count as original research, so I tried to avoid quoting too much from them here, and was trying more to mention their previous citation by articles like the Media Matters, FactCheck.org, and Time Magazine ones. I can probably find mention of his words from the transcripts in other major publications as well for sourcing, although his words from the Induced Birth Infants Liability Act probably haven't been quoted as heavily in the press as those in the Illinois BAIPA. --Jzyehoshua 21:59, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Articles Citing the Senate Transcripts

I will be tracking articles I've found citing the senate transcripts here, as well as some thoughts on them:

  • FactCheck.org, "Obama and 'Infanticide'":[11] Did recognize Obama distorted his record, stating, "We find that, as the NRLC said in a recent statement, Obama voted in committee against the 2003 state bill that was nearly identical to the federal act he says he would have supported. Both contained identical clauses saying that nothing in the bills could be construed to affect legal rights of an unborn fetus, according to an undisputed summary written immediately after the committee's 2003 mark-up session... The statement was still on Obama's Web site as of this writing, Aug. 25, long after Obama had accused his detractors of 'lying.' But Obama's claim is wrong. In fact, by the time the HHS Committee voted on the bill, it did contain language identical to the federal act."
However, FactCheck then adopted a new Obama defense, that the Illinois laws were already sufficient to protect children that survived abortions, stating, "It is worth noting that Illinois law already provided that physicians must protect the life of a fetus when there is 'a reasonable likelihood of sustained survival of the fetus outside the womb, with or without artificial support.'... Obama’s campaign now has a different explanation for his vote against the 2003 Illinois bill. Even with the same wording as the federal law, the Obama camp says, the state bill would have a different effect than the BAIPA would have at the federal level. It's state law, not federal law, that actually regulates the practice of abortion. So a bill defining a pre-viable fetus born as the result of abortion as a human could directly affect the practice of abortion at the state level, but not at the federal level, the campaign argues... But whether or not one accepts those arguments, it is not the reason Obama had been giving for his 2003 opposition. He told Brody that the federal bill 'was not the bill that was presented at the state level.'... And there are already laws in Illinois, which Obama has said he supports, that protect these children even when they are born as the result of an abortion. Illinois compiled statute 720 ILCS 510/6 states that physicians performing abortions when the fetus is viable must use the procedure most likely to preserve the fetus' life; must be attended by another physician who can care for a born-alive infant; and must '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.' Failure to do any of the above is considered a felony. NRLC calls this law 'loophole-ridden.'"
Personally, and I hope I am free to speak as such, I personally have a problem with this defense, that Illinois laws were already sufficient. As FactCheck.org noted, the NRLC called the laws loophole-ridden. What is not being mentioned here is that the federal bill which outlawed born alive abortions, the federal Born Alive Infants Protection Act, specifically dealt with Illinois law as that which allowed such 'infanticide' (a Congressional term btw, not of my own use, as seen in the Congressional findings when passing the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003, Sec. 2(14)G) and Sec. 2(14)(O)[12]), since both primary witnesses in the federal case, Jill Stanek and Allison Baker worked in an Illinois hospital (Christ Hospital in Oaklawn Illinois).[13] As such, Illinois law was most of all front and center for the federal bill, and the federal bill clearly did not treat Illinois law as sufficient, or it would not have used as its primary witnesses 2 nurses testifying about Illinois events occurring in Illinois hospitals, under Illinois law.
Furthermore, as seen from Obama's statements on the Illinois Senate floor, he did not try to debate that Illinois law was sufficient. Rather, his arguments dealt with them not being born to a full 9-month term, not burdening abortion doctors, and being careful not to risk harming Roe v. Wade. I think the FactCheck.org article may have been alluding to this when it said, "But whether or not one accepts those arguments, it is not the reason Obama had been giving for his 2003 opposition." Obama had not been using this excuse of sufficient Illinois laws for his opposition, either on the Illinois Senate floor, or until his other defenses failed.
And finally, as detailed on the Present Votes page, he led an Illinois legislative movement, working with the Illinois Planned Parenthood division, to cover up not just his controversial votes on these 'born alive' bills, but those of other politicians as well! As pointed out by the Washington Post,[14] he actually voted against a number of bills intended to protect children that survived abortions. And as stated by Richard Winkel,[15] the 'born alive' movement behind the bills even went out of its way to adopt neutrality language similar to the federal bill to ensure it would not stop Roe v. Wade. As Winkel put it, "On March 12, 2003, I presented the neutrality amendment before the state Health and Human Services Committee chaired by then state Sen. Obama. All 10 committee members voted to add the amendment. Nevertheless, during the same hearing, the committee rejected the bill as amended on a vote of 4-6-0. Obama voted no. I was stunned because the neutrality amendment addressed the concerns of opponents. It was the same neutrality language approved by U.S. Sens. Barbara Boxer, Ted Kennedy, Hillary Clinton and John Kerry in the federal bill." Not until Obama left the Illinois Senate was it able to pass the legislation preventing 'previable fetuses' from being left to die after birth. --Jzyehoshua 22:49, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
  • MediaMatters.org, "Wash. Times editorial cropped Obama quote to falsely claim he argued against protecting 'babies who survive botched late-term abortions'":[16] Ironically, Media Matters makes many of the same points I have been, that Obama's arguments were for trusting individual abortion doctors to protect children when they are born alive, rather than cold-heartedly leaving them to die, without additional standards of accountability or assurance, and that we should be more concerned about whether Roe v. Wade is endangered in any way, than whether newborn children are being left to die. As seen from the discussion in the comments, a number of people disagreed even when this was so plainly put. In a way, I can even agree with Media Matters. They are simply making a similar point to what Richard Winkel did, that Obama and the others were not supporting infanticide, but that "their zeal for pro-choice dogma was clearly the overriding force behind their negative votes rather than concern that my bill would protect babies who are born alive" and thus, they voted as though they did anyway. Thus, I would not argue so much that it is support for infanticide, as choosing to err on the side of protecting Roe v. Wade rather than stopping children from being left to die. Whether that amounts to infanticide is of course debatable. I still think it's wrong - regardless of what it's called.
  • National Right to Life Committee, "Obama Cover-up on Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Continues to Unravel After Sen. Obama Says NRLC is 'Lying'": [17] The NRLC here makes many points I have been making.
-Obama Misstated His Position: They quote the New York Sun article as well I notice.
-About Present Votes: "Obama voted against this bill in committee. On the floor he gave a speech attacking it and a couple of other related bills (the only such speech by any senator). Although the speech was technically made during consideration of another bill, SB 1093, Obama said that his reasons applied to SB 1095 (the BAIPA) as well. He then voted 'present.' Voting 'present' was a tactic recommended by the local Planned Parenthood lobbyist; under an Illinois constitutional provision a bill is deemed passed only if it receives an absolute majority of the sworn members of the House or Senate, so the operative effect of a 'present' vote is the same as a 'no' vote." I already addressed this in depth on the Present Votes page.
-Argument About Protecting Roe v. Wade: According to the NRLC, "The core of Obama's speech was the same as the 2000 NARAL attack at the federal level -- the bill violated Roe v. Wade because it applied to 'a pre-viable fetus.'... It did not seem to matter to Obama in 2001 (or to NARAL, in 2000) that the 'fetuses' (sic) in question were entirely born and alive. Because, you see, they were 'pre-viable,' and these were abortions." This is for me a major deal-breaker in the argument. I understand the argument deals with being so concerned about protecting abortion that newborn children (or previable fetuses) don't come into the picture, but I just don't agree with killing them like that. For me, the failure to make this simple moral connection to protecting human life as a right thing should invalidate any trust in their having a moral compass or being capable of leadership whatsoever. Regardless of whether termed 'infanticide' or anything else. I don't care about terminology, it's the substance of the matter.
Some other points I didn't make:
-Born Alive Bills Very Differently Treated by Congress: I did not emphasize this as much, but as the NRLC points out, "Nevertheless, the vast majority of 'pro-choice' House members -- including hard-core pro-abortion leaders such as Jerrold Nadler -- were unwilling to extend the principles of Roe to living babies entirely separate from their mothers. They rejected the NARAL claim and voted for the bill; it passed the House 380-15. (Nothing like that had ever happened to NARAL before.) But the bill was killed in the Senate by an objection to unanimous consent... On the 2001 and 2002 state bills, Obama took to a position that already had been rejected by the U.S. House 380-15 (in 2000). In 2003, Obama took a position on the abortion-survivor legislation that was more extreme than any member of Congress of either party."
  • National Review, "Catholics for Obama?":[18] Lopez sees fit to simply quote Obama's words about not protecting 'previable fetuses' because they weren't born to a full 9-month term, and then end her article as follows: "That would be a child, albeit not a nine-month-old child (forgive me for not being moved by his distinction), whose life he dismissed. This is the Democrats’ candidate for president. Catholics need to know what their Church teaches. Know your candidate. Know abortion isn’t just any issue. It’s a grave offense and betrayal to fail to protect the most innocent human life. If you’re a Catholic who honestly can see how Barack Obama ’s election as president won’t contribute to or compound that offence, go in peace. I don’t see it. I don’t see how anyone can see it. And so for those who don’t get a vote, for those who have been mutilated and murdered in the name of 'choice,' this Catholic will cast hers against him in November." I know for some the transcripts won't be evidence enough because they count as original research, but I agree with Lopez that simply seeing the words alone in black and white is proof enough of this politician's caliber or lack thereof.
  • Time Magazine, "How Valid is Palin's Abortion Attack on Obama?":[19] The article states, "In each case, Palin's words were carefully chosen for maximum effect, without employing any outright falsehoods. Taken in isolation, however, her statements were also quite misleading, as they suggested that Obama supported the death of babies after birth who had a chance of survival. The reality is very different. Between 2001 and '03, Obama repeatedly voted to oppose bills in the Illinois senate that would have declared, simply, that any child 'born alive' as a result of an abortion shall be protected as a "human person" under the law. The bills broadly defined a live birth as any child outside the mother who shows voluntary movement, breathes or has a beating heart, among other attributes. At the time, as the Obama campaign has pointed out, Illinois state law already required doctors to provide medical treatment for all children born after abortions who demonstrated viability, which was defined under the law as a 'reasonable likelihood of sustained survival of the fetus outside the womb, with or without artificial support.' The Born Alive legislation, therefore, would have primarily impacted a different category of babies — those born with life signs that doctors decided did not have a reasonable chance of survival."
What the Time Magazine article does not mention, as I stated concerning the FactCheck article, is that this was occurring prior to the federal bill as well under Illinois law, as testified before Congress by Stanek and Baker. Therefore, abortion doctors were already skirting the law and deciding children who survived the abortions did not have a reasonable chance of survival. This was testified before Congress and resulted in the 2002 passage of the federal Born Alive Infants Protection Act - that Obama, before he got caught in the 'misstatement', had repeatedly stated he would have voted in favor of. Ultimately, it comes down to the words of Obama concerning the Induced Birth Infants Liability Act transcript I earlier quoted:
"Essentially, I think, as -- as this emerged during debate and during committee, the only plausible rationale, to my mind, for this legislation would be if you had a suspicion that a doctor, the attending physician, who has made an assessment that this is a nonviable fetus and that, let's say for the purposes of the mother's health, is being -- that -- that labor is being induced, that that physician (a) is going to make the wrong assessment and (b) if the physician discovered, after the labor had been induced, that, in fact, he made an error, or she made an error, and, in fact, that that physician, of his own accord or her own accord, would not try to exercise the sort of medical measures and practices that would be involved in saving that child. Now, if -- if you think that there are possibilities that doctors would not do that, then maybe this bill makes sense, but I -- I suspect and my impression is, is that the Medical Society suspects as well that doctors feel that they would be under that obligation, that they would already be making these determinations and that, essentially, adding a -- an additional doctor who then has to be called in an emergency situation to come in and make these assessments is really designed simply to burden the original decision of the woman and the physician to induce labor and perform an abortion. Now, if that's the case - and -- and I know that some of us feel very strongly one way or another on that issue - that's fine, but I think it's important to understand that this issue ultimately is about abortion and not live births. Because if these children are being born alive, I, at least, have confidence that a doctor who is in that room is going to make sure that they're looked after."[20]
  • RealClearPolitics, "Obama's Abortion Vulnerability":[21]
  • ABC News, "The Abortion Vote the GOP is Planning to Use to Bring Down Obama":[22] I can't resist adding, even though I wasn't intending to write much more here, that had the GOP actually focused on valid criticisms of Obama like this, instead of slurring him all over the place with easily debunked mudslinging, McCain might've gotten more support. Instead, the GOP did not make it an issue until the last month or so of the election, when everyone had written McCain off, and it was like the boy who cried wolf by then. Plus, it came off as a desperate attempt to just throw mud rather than a validly sourced criticism.
  • CBN:[23] I have NO idea what this PDF is doing on the Christian Broadcasting Network's website. Or why its header says "From Barack Obama Campaign"... Very unusual.
  • National Right to Life Committee:[24] HERE is what I was looking for. The NRLC debunked a number of the Obama defenses, including that Illinois law was sufficient already. They make, as I'd have expected, similar points to my own:
"Obama explained in 2001, and has never recanted, that he opposed the Illinois BAIPA because it declared a "previable fetus" to be a legal person – even though the bill only did so if the baby had achieved "complete expulsion or extraction from its mother." (Obama’s statements are quoted verbatim further on in this white paper.) The old Illinois law in question (720 ILCS 510.6) covered only situations where an abortionist declares before the abortion that there was "a reasonable likelihood of sustained survival of the fetus outside the womb." Humans are often born alive a month or more before they reach the point where such "sustained survival" – that is, long-term survival – is likely or possible (which is often called the point of "viability"). The old Illinois law has no bearing on many of the induced-labor abortions about which the nurses testified before the committees in Congress and the Illinois state legislature, because many of them were performed on unborn humans who were capable of being born alive, and who often were born alive, but who were not old enough to have a "reasonable likelihood of sustained survival . . . outside the womb."
Even with respect to "viable" infants, the old law is ridden with loopholes. It does not apply except when the abortionist himself declares that there is "a reasonable likelihood of sustained survival of the fetus outside the womb." This already-weak law was further weakened by a lengthy consent decree issued by a federal court in 1993, which among other things permanently prohibits authorities from enforcing the law’s definitions of "born alive," "live born," and "live birth." On April 4, 2002, Obama spoke on the Illinois Senate floor against a bill (SB 1663 – which was not the BAIPA) that would have more strictly defined the circumstances under which the presence of a second physician (to care for a live-born baby) would be required; Obama argued that this would "burden the original decision of the woman and the physician to induce labor and perform an abortion . . . [I]t’s important to understand that this issue ultimately is about abortion and not live births."
Like I did already, they also emphasize the federal bill's emphasis on Illinois events, and that the federal bill Obama says he'd have voted for addressed Illinois:
"The September 2000 committee report of the U.S. House of Representatives' Judiciary Committee on the federal BAIPA (H. Rept. 106-835) summarized some of the testimony that indicated why such legislation (federal and state) was necessary:
Two nurses from the hospital’s delivery ward, Jill Stanek and Allison Baker (who is no longer employed by the hospital), testified before the Subcommittee on the Constitution that physicians at Christ Hospital have performed numerous ‘induced labor’ or ‘live-birth’ abortions, a procedure in which physicians use drugs to induce premature labor and deliver unborn children, many of whom are still alive, and then simply allow those who are born alive to die. . . . According to the testimony of Mrs. Stanek and Mrs. Baker . . . physicians at Christ Hospital have used the procedure to abort healthy infants and infants with non-fatal deformities . . . Many of these babies have lived for hours after birth, with no efforts made to determine if any of them could have survived with appropriate medical assistance. The nurses also witnessed hospital staff taking many of these live-born babies into a ‘soiled utility room’ where the babies would remain until death. Comfort care, the nurses say, was not provided consistently." (see pages 8-9 of H. Rept. 106-835).
One example given by Mrs. Stanek was that an aborted baby "was left to die on the counter of the Soiled Utility Room wrapped in a disposable towel. This baby was accidentally thrown in the garbage, and when they later were going through the trash to find the baby, the baby fell out of the towel and on to the floor." (Id. at 9). Mrs. Baker testified that she "happened to walk into a ‘soiled utility room’ and saw, lying on the metal counter, a fetus, naked, exposed and breathing, moving its arms and legs." (Id. at 10).
In testimony by Stanek before the Illinois Senate Judiciary Committee, on March 27, 2001, she said: "It is not uncommon for a live aborted babies to linger for an hour or two or even longer. At Christ Hospital one of these babies once lived for almost an entire eight-hour shift. Last year alone, of the 13 babies that I am aware of who were aborted at Christ Hospital, at least four lived between 1-1/2 to 3 hours, two boys and two girls."
Which brings up another question: Stanek testified federally and for the Illinois case. Her testimony led to the aforementioned House 380-15 decision which included support from such noteworthy pro-lifers as Ted Kennedy, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, and Barbara Boxer. Therefore, if she was delivering the exact same testimony, about the exact same events, occurring in the exact same location (Oak Lawn, Illinois), for bills whose language was for all intents and purposes identical, why then could her testimony persuade the large bulk of Congress, but not Barack Obama?
  • National Review Online, "Obama No Friend To The Unborn":[25]
  • National Review Online, "True Lives":[26]

Miscellaneous

These are the articles you're probably not going to consider reliable, so I'm just going to list them and not bother with analyses. They're just here to show there's extra sourcing even if it won't be agreed upon or included in the article (consider them informational, in providing all news articles in talk simply for thoroughness - I have no intention of trying to get any of them included as sources for this page, merely being thorough on the off chance one might be acceptable):

  • Human Events, (by Terrence P. Jeffrey) "Obama is the Most Pro-Abortion Candidate Ever"[27]
  • Citizenlink.org, (by Jill Stanek) "Obama Blocked Born Alive Infant Protection Act"[28]
  • WorldNetDaily (by Jill Stanek) "Obama's 10 reasons for supporting infanticide"[29]
  • CNSNews.com, (by Terrence P. Jeffrey) "The Obama Debate"[30]
  • Townhall.com, (by Amanda Carpenter) "Obama's Infanticide Lie"[31]
  • LifeNews.com, (by Dr. Warren Throckmorton) "When Does a Baby Get Human Rights? Barack Obama's Abortion Vote Answers"[32]
  • Media Matters, "Hannity paraphrased passage from Corsi's book that gets Obama's speech on abortion bill wrong": [33]
  • Human Events, "Day 6: Obama Panders on Abortion":[34]
  • LifeNews, (by Deal Hudson) "With Abortion Backing, Is It Fair to Say Barack Obama Supports Infanticide?" [35]
  • CNSNews (by Penny Starr) "Obama Campaign Ad Targets Abortion: Survivor"[36]
  • Newsbusters, "CNN.com Omits Palin’s Highlight of Obama’s Radical Abortion Votes":[37]

Obama Defenses

I just found another Obama abortion defense article on his Fight the Smears site. I know there are a few out there and don't want them missed when I include them here, so I've bolded here as well and will link as I find them:

  • Organizing for America, "The Truth Behind False, Outrageous Lies about Obama and Born Alive Legislation"[38]

Conclusion

The Time Magazine and FactCheck.org articles previously mentioned will of course be the highlight articles here, though I'd also like to see the NRLC one mentioned, perhaps farther down as a secondary-type mention. To follow the prominent sources here will be to simply state their support for Obama's newest defense that Illinois law was sufficient - even though again, I clearly feel they are not addressing major facts from the senate transcripts and federal case. Nevertheless, these articles will also provide proof that Obama did indeed misstate his position on voting against the federal bill, a long-time distortion of his, and that is enough for me. So I will be content to simply have the content of both those articles presented, and hope that another primary source can be found to mention that Illinois law was not effective enough, so that such points could be made on the page as an alternative view. I will not of course include some of the reasoning I here presented unless it is found to be made by reliable sources - so far the most reliable appears to be the NRLC one, which might be a possibility. Therefore, I understand that the points made here must first be verified as quotable from a major, reliable, and notable source elsewhere; therefore if I can't find one, I will have to be content. --Jzyehoshua 00:30, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Also, I realize my articles post is getting more than a little lengthy, and has achieved its purpose I think in pointing out my concerns about the 'Illinois laws were sufficient' statement. Let me know if you'd prefer it collapsed and I can do so. In the meantime, I'll try to find some more sources on that latest defense of Obama's. --Jzyehoshua 00:33, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
Also, the reason why I did not immediately write about that last controversy, whether previous Illinois law was sufficient to protect live-born children who survive abortions, isn't because it wasn't easily debunked (again, the federal Born Alive Infants Protection Act called as key witnesses Illinois nurses and addressed Illinois events, Obama did not debate when opposing the bill on the Senate floor that the law was sufficient but rather made other arguments, and also Obama used a Present Votes strategy with Planned Parenthood to cover up his and other senator's votes on these bills from the American people suggesting they couldn't defend it honestly). Rather, it was because I was worried making these points without showing they'd been made elsewhere would count as original research, so I wanted to find out if they'd been made in other publications (the NRLC one[39] appears the best bet). I wanted to have all sources in place first before addressing it. --Jzyehoshua 14:55, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
And so there's no confusion, those sources were specifically for articles citing the Illinois Senate Transcript with Obama's own words, not for the controversy as a whole. There is of course no shortage of major press coverage of the Born Alive controversy in general, which I can find readily, for example:
And those are just all off the first 10 pages of this search, which has 57,200 results.[58] (And no, I don't expect to go through all of them.)
Also, a very interesting article by Eriz Zorn of the Chicago Tribune resulted in some good discussion on the topic.[59]
This controversy is unusual in that it is so controversial, some almost assume it can't be true. As though it is a conspiracy theory with poor sourcing, when the reverse is correct. It is major enough that the issues surrounding it were in 2008 brought up Hillary Clinton,[60] Mike Huckabee,[61] Sarah Palin,[62] and John McCain.[63]
It is well-documented and well-covered by the press. Some even seem to be assuming that it can't be rationally discussed because of how extreme the topic matter. I at least intend to do my best to remain entirely objective about the claims involved and how best to address them. --Jzyehoshua 16:37, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
Also, I have been thinking, and perhaps the Abortion Policy page is not the best spot for this material. It would seem to distract a bit from his voting record as it's really a separate controversy in and of itself. I've been thinking, and think it best to create a separate page on the 'born alive' controversy, similar to the page for the 'present votes' controversy. Then a summary can be provided at the bottom of this page - I am hoping to make it even shorter than the current 'Criticisms' section. That would seem the best way to present this on the site. --Jzyehoshua 17:07, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

on this topic

Dear Jzyehoshua: I appreciate the time you have put into explaining all this, but I must emphasize that this website is not focused on the issue of abortion. There are plenty of websites, many of which you have referenced, that focus on this topic and that is not the mission of SourceWatch, even though I understand that you have been very forthright in acknowledging that it is a major issue on which you focus.

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