Read entire article on page 2. Note again, as I noted on the Associated Press article and in my talking points post, Obama surrogates are attempting to mash reasons – particularly Born Alive’s companion bills – into his new excuse for not voting for Born Alive. But these were always separate bills with separate bill numbers and separate votes. One did not hinge upon the other’s passage.
New York Times, today:
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Abortion, a familiar issue in elections past, has again emerged in recent days as a focus of controversy. Senator Barack Obama is coming under intense fire from anti-abortion groups because of the position he took as an IL state senator on legislation regarding the status of fetuses that survive abortion procedures….

Both Mr. Obama and his critics agree that, as chairman of the Health and Human Services Committee in the state legislature in 2003, he led efforts to defeat a bill called the Born Alive Infants Protection Act. But they disagree about virtually every other aspect of the legislation, from its meaning and purpose to the breadth of its application.
The recent controversy erupted after an interview Mr. Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, gave to the Christian Broadcasting Network on Saturday night, immediately following his televised question-and-answer session with the Rev. Rick Warren at Saddleback Church in CA. Asked about the legislation, Mr. Obama said, “here’s a situation where folks are lying” when they say he has misrepresented his position.
In 2002, President Bush signed a federal “born alive” law. The measure passed by sweeping majorities in Congress, with the support of many legislators who usually vote against legislation favored by groups seeking to overturn Roe v. Wade…. Even organizations like [NARAL] did not oppose the bill.

Mr. Obama has repeatedly said that he would have been willing to vote for such a measure in IL had it been identical to the federal statute. But “that was not the bill that was presented at the state level,” he said Saturday. “What that bill also was doing was trying to undermine Roe v. Wade.”
The statute Congress passed in 2002 and the one the IL committee rejected a year later are virtually identical.… or induced labor, cesarean section or induced abortion.”
That has led Mr. Obama’s critics to accuse him of playing fast and loose with the truth when he says he “would have been completely in, fully in support of the federal bill that everybody supported” if it had been offered at the state level.
“I don’t know whether he is lying or whether he forgot, but with his words, he is condemning himself, ” said Jill Stanek, a nurse in the Chicago area who was a main proponent of the federal measure and writes an anti-abortion blog. “He voted one way and then covered it up, and he has to explain that, not just to me, but to the American people.”
But the Illinois proposal always had a companion bill….
In his remarks Saturday, Mr. Obama took a lawyerly approach, appearing to refer to the entire package of abortion-related bills regularly submitted to the IL legislature, not only to the 2003 definitional bill. His critics, however, said that was a smoke screen.
“Obama confuses these bills, which were entirely separate,” Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee, said. “They had sequential numbers, but they were not in any way linked. To call them a package is a tactic to try to reach out and grab issues in an attempt to divert attention from this one.”

New York Times
Obama’s 2003 Stand on Abortion Draws New Criticism in 2008
By Larry Rochter
August 19, 2008
Abortion, a familiar issue in elections past, has again emerged in recent days as a focus of controversy. Senator Barack Obama is coming under intense fire from anti-abortion groups because of the position he took as an Illinois state senator on legislation regarding the status of fetuses that survive abortion procedures.
Both Mr. Obama and his critics agree that, as chairman of the Health and Human Services Committee in the state legislature in 2003, he led efforts to defeat a bill called the Born Alive Infants Protection Act. But they disagree about virtually every other aspect of the legislation, from its meaning and purpose to the breadth of its application.
The recent controversy erupted after an interview Mr. Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, gave to the Christian Broadcasting Network on Saturday night, immediately following his televised question-and-answer session with the Rev. Rick Warren at Saddleback Church in California. Asked about the legislation, Mr. Obama said, “here’s a situation where folks are lying” when they say he has misrepresented his position.
In 2002, President Bush signed a federal “born alive” law. The measure passed by sweeping majorities in Congress, with the support of many legislators who usually vote against legislation favored by groups seeking to overturn Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion. Even organizations like the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, now known as Naral Pro-Choice America, did not oppose the bill.
Mr. Obama has repeatedly said that he would have been willing to vote for such a measure in Illinois had it been identical to the federal statute. But “that was not the bill that was presented at the state level,” he said Saturday. “What that bill also was doing was trying to undermine Roe v. Wade.”
The statute Congress passed in 2002 and the one the Illinois committee rejected a year later are virtually identical. Both say, for example, that “the words ‘person,’ ‘human being,’ ‘child’ and ‘individual’ shall include every infant member of the species homo sapiens who is born alive at any stage of development,” regardless of whether that birth “occurs as a result of natural or induced labor, cesarean section or induced abortion.”
That has led Mr. Obama’s critics to accuse him of playing fast and loose with the truth when he says he “would have been completely in, fully in support of the federal bill that everybody supported” if it had been offered at the state level.
“I don’t know whether he is lying or whether he forgot, but with his words, he is condemning himself, ” said Jill Stanek, a nurse in the Chicago area who was a main proponent of the federal measure and writes an anti-abortion blog. “He voted one way and then covered it up, and he has to explain that, not just to me, but to the American people.”
But the Illinois proposal always had a companion bill. The accompanying legislation, called the Induced Infant Liability Act, would have allowed legal action “on the child’s behalf for damages, including costs of care to preserve and protect the life, health and safety of the child, punitive damages, and costs and attorney’s fees, against a hospital, health care facility or health care provider who harms or neglects the child or fails to provide medical care to the child after the child’s birth.”
Groups that favor abortion rights say that bill would have introduced the possibility that doctors could be sued for failing to take extraordinary measures to save the lives of pre-viable infants, those born so prematurely that they could not possibly survive. As a result, they argue, it is disingenuous of anti-abortion organizations to claim that Mr. Obama was moving to quash only a narrow and innocuous definitional bill identical to federal law.
“I can tell you the sponsors always wanted the entire package of bills, which were introduced together and analyzed together,” said Pam Sutherland, who was president of the Illinois branch of Planned Parenthood at the time and is now the group’s lobbyist. “They never wanted them separated, because they wanted to make sure that physicians would be chilled into not performing abortions for fear of going to jail.”
Another concern mentioned by opponents of the bill, including Mr. Obama when he was in the State Senate, was that the state legislation amounted to an illegal end run around Roe v. Wade.
“We do not object to a solely definitional bill,” like the one approved at the federal level, said Mary Dixon, legislative director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois. “But when you take a definition comparable to the federal one and combine it with other provisions that attempt to give full personhood to a fetus that is pre-viable and try to put fear of criminal and civil liability in the minds of physicians, you have created a much different scenario.”
The Illinois State Medical Society, which also fought the legislation and was cited by Mr. Obama on Saturday in his defense of his position, said in a statement that it opposed the package of bills, first introduced in 2001, “because they interfered negatively with the physician-patient relationship, attempted to dictate the practice of medicine for neonatal care and greatly expanded civil liability for physicians.”
In his remarks Saturday, Mr. Obama took a lawyerly approach, appearing to refer to the entire package of abortion-related bills regularly submitted to the Illinois legislature, not only to the 2003 definitional bill. His critics, however, said that was a smoke screen.
“Obama confuses these bills, which were entirely separate,” Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee, said. “They had sequential numbers, but they were not in any way linked. To call them a package is a tactic to try to reach out and grab issues in an attempt to divert attention from this one.”
The accusations against Mr. Obama reprise those leveled against him in his 2004 campaign for the United States Senate. His opponent in that race, Alan Keyes, accused him of “infanticide,” citing Mr. Obama’s vote on the “born alive” bill, earlier versions of which had been rejected even when Republicans controlled the state legislature.
A year later, after Mr. Obama had moved on to Washington, the Illinois legislature approved a “born alive” law. But that statute, as the result of a compromise meant to avoid the standoff that led Mr. Obama to oppose the 2003 version, added language specifically stating that it should not be construed “to affect existing federal or state law regarding abortion” or “to alter generally accepted medical standards.”

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