Multiple mistakes about Obama and the Born Alive Act in new book, “The Amateur”
Edward Klein’s unauthorized biography of Barack Obama, The Amateur, was released yesterday.
While I appreciate that Klein devoted a chapter of his book, albeit only three pages, to Obama’s opposition as state senator to the Illinois Born Alive Infant Protection Act, he got it pretty much all wrong. You can read the chapter at the link above, but here is the relevant section:
Obama did, however, have an interest in opposing a law that would have banned late-term partial birth abortions, a gruesome procedure that was once condemned by the late New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan as “too close to infanticide.” All across the state of Illinois, people were riveted by the controversial debate. The Chicago Sun-Times ran a cartoon showing God reaching down from heaven to a baby in front of Obama, who is holding a sign that reads “Live Birth Abortions” and yelling at God, “You keep out of this!”
An Illinois nurse named Jill Stanek testified before the Health and Human Services Committee that she had discovered that babies were being aborted alive and allowed to die in soiled utility rooms. One baby was accidentally thrown into the trash. Though Obama never showed up at the committee hearings, he voted against the bill – not once, but twice.
When, after a decade in the political wilderness, Illinois Democrats gained a majority in the legislature, Obama became chairman of the Health and Human Services Committee. As chairman, he prevented the “Live Baby Bill” from getting a committee hearing, guaranteeing that the legislation would die, much as the late-term babies were dying in the state’s hospitals.
People often get details about this chain of events wrong. For many years I, myself, thought Obama voted against the Born Alive Act three times, when it was actually four. It doesn’t help that the Obama campaign and liberals persistently try to muddy the waters.
But Klein’s portrayal of events was wrong on just about every point. I expected better from the former editor-in-chief of The New York Times Magazine, who has also had many books on the NYT bestseller’s list.
First and foremost, at issue was the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, not the Partial Birth Abortion Ban, which Obama also opposed as state senator but had to do with a different abortion procedure.
And, as previously stated, Obama voted against the Born Alive bill a total of four times, not two.
But my biggest issue is Klein’s conjecture that Obama did not attend the committee hearings on Born Alive. I’ve never heard that before. I have previously written about an exchange between Obama and me at one of those hearings, so to say Obama wasn’t even in the room inadvertently calls my portrayal of events into question.
The quickest refutation to that claim is Obama’s committee votes on Born Alive (here, here, and here). Substitutes are noted in Illinois, and Obama had no substitutes. He was there to vote.
In addition, State Net, a branch of LexisNexis that has reporters memorialize state legislative committee hearings, published notes about our March 5, 2002, debate, which was quite an odd one. Click to enlarge…
I should note this conversation was about a companion bill to Born Alive, which would have mandated that a second doctor be present in the event any baby was anticipated to be born alive in the State of Illinois.
As I testified, current Illinois law allowed (and still allows) the abortionist to determine before a baby is born whether s/he thinks the baby will be viable. It is easy to see why the person being paid to deliver a dead baby would do all s/he could to ensure that outcome, even if slightly delayed. Obama didn’t believe an abortionist would stoop that low. Pro-lifers do. It makes total sense. Kermit Gosnell proved our point.
But what made the conversation odd was Obama’s statement, “I agreed with you last year and we suggested that there be a Comfort Room or something of that nature be done.”
In fact, Obama hadn’t said anything the year before (see StateNet’s notes here and here), and now he wanted to take partial credit for devising the Comfort Room?
The concept of such a room was so twisted. Rather than take abortion survivors to the Soiled Utility Room, nurses now took them to a room where they could have photos and footprints taken as keepsakes. And Obama was all in. (See more photos of the Christ Hospital’s Comfort Room here.)
At any rate, Klein got the story all wrong. I’ve been reading his book and find it interesting but wonder how much of it is accurate, if this was any indication.
[HT: Fran Eaton at Illinois Review]
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
Tangential, I know, but a COMFORT ROOM?? Really??
Who is being comforted, and what for?
Perhaps that space is just big enough for Obama’s ego and small enough for his conscience.
What a crappy, little man.
I don’t know if his was an attempt to get the story wrong as much a lack of understanding of the issues and events involved. However, if Mr Klein put this much care into the rest of his reporting, I have real doubts about this book.
To be fair, most media reporting on this issue has been of such poor quality that it would be difficult for someone writing a book to get accurate information. Of course the problem is multiplied when one writes something like this that someone later might cite as a source… In other words, misunderstandings are going to become more wide spread based on whats written on three pages of this book.
The COMFORT ROOM might as well be inaugurated as the TILLER MEMORIAL COMFORT ROOM, since TILLER did the exact same thing in his building.
‘The o’bamateur’
mr. bo-jangles missed his calling.
‘b o’ should have been a hood ornament on a parked car.
He likes to get our front of things after the fact.
While Kleins version of events may not precisely reflect what really went down with regard to Illinois Infant Born Alive Protection Act, such is the state of what passes for journalism today.
But as Jill correctly points out, whether it was 4 or 40 times, the ‘obamateur’ always votes against the best interest of the child.
I wish there was some way Jill you could get more media notice of these inaccuracies so that the general public and not just us news junkies could know about this. Talk radio?? as a start????
An Illinois nurse named Jill Stanek testified before the Health and Human Services Commitee that she had discovered that babies were being aborted alive and allowed to die in soiled utility rooms.
This was no episode of Murder, She Wrote. Jill Stanek personally experienced this “discovery”. Klein’s account is almost as detached as Obama’s questioning was cold-blooded. Sigh.
The website Hot Air chronicles Obama’s gaffes, calling them “Obamateurisms”. But there’s nothing amateur about his War On Babies.
“To be fair, most media reporting on this issue has been of such poor quality that it would be difficult for someone writing a book to get accurate information.”
I have to disagree. The people involved are still alive and accessible. He should call them and talk to them.
“What a crappy, little man.”
but ‘the obamateur’ can dance.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cb_f9DHbgG8
Maybe the publisher needs to recall the book and re-write chapter 3 with the facts this time. Can they issue a PUBLIC correction? After reading those three pages that Jill linked to, one has to wonder why the author even bothered to include the topic of BAIPA at all.
Unfortunately Janetforlife, what usually happens is that corrections must wait until any future publishings. A publisher won’t recall a book unless there is threat of litigation. It’d be nice if Mr. Klein voluntarily issued a public statement that Chapter 3 contains inaccurate or incomplete information, but I can’t imagine that’s likely.
Thank you for saving me from bothering to read this book. I’ve got way too much of real value on my reading list to waste time on something that was clearly very sloppily researched … if “research” even applies.