by Fran Eaton and Jill Stanek

An article in The Hill today about Barack Obama‘s obstruction of IL’s Born Alive Infants Protection Act when he was state senator reopens an old wound, in particular, this passage….

Obama’s campaign did not return calls for comment, but Pam Sutherland, president of the Illinois Planned Parenthood Council, said the Illinois legislation was misleading and a far cry from the Senate’s legislation. Obama was aware of this difference, she added.

Sutherland noted that every medical group in the state was opposed to the state legislation, which would have opened the door to “civil suits and criminal charges” for doctors and led directly to an overall ban on abortions.

“The legislation was written to ban abortion, plain and simple,” she said. “Sen. Obama saw the legislation, when he was there, for what it was.”

On the narrower issue of “born alive” infants, Sutherland said, Planned Parenthood of Illinois worked last year with the anti-abortion group, the Illinois Federation of Right to Life, to pass legislation that protects infants that survive abortion procedures.

Sutherland et al are liars, which comes as no surprise to pro-lifers….

1. The IL Born Alive bill would have been identical to the federal version way back in 2003 had not Obama himself refused an amendment making it so as chair of the Senate Health & Human Services Committee.
2. Only one medical group opposed the Born Alive package of three bills, albeit a big one: The IL State Medical Society.  ISMS did not like the liability bill – separate from the Born Alive bill – that would have indeed allowed civil lawsuits if abortionists abandoned live aborted babies to die without at least assessing them.  ISMS also had a problem, as did Obama in his one-man Senate floor debate against it, with a bill that would have mandated that a separate, objective doctor from the abortionist assess the intended victim for viability.  (One of these days, let’s talk about that.)
3. If Sutherland were on a witness stand she would be slapped with perjury for saying any of the three of these bills would have led to an abortion ban.  The legislation was written to ban infanticide, not abortion, as Pam well knows.  And Pam wouldn’t support even that if she could get away with it.  In fact, she did until it politically got too hot for her.

The last paragraph is the wound reopener.  In 2005, we had the votes to pass Born Alive.  The pressure was stronger than ever before to do the right thing.  It would have happened. 

But IL Federation for the Right to Life and IL Citizens for Life blinked.  They compromised without needing to compromise, building a bridge to nowhere with the "help" of all people, Democrat Rep. John Fritchey, who we’ll remind readers is the sponsor of the current bill to gut parental notification and has apparently threatened to introduce legislation designating Choose Life license plate funds to go toward embryonic stem cell experimentation.

IFRL and ICL agreed to add amendments to Born Alive that it would not impede on Roe v. Wade or interfere with standard medical practices, whatever those are.  These amendments were utterly unnecessary and only offered so the other side could save face.

The other side saved face all right, and now they’re rubbing our faces in "it."  Lesson learned?  Don’t count on it.  Until the day comes we are more concerned that the enemy respect us than like us, history will repeat.