Many people have emailed me about Barack Obama's July 1 interview with Relevant magazine, in which he stated...

The other email rumor that's been floating around is that somehow I'm unwilling to see doctors offer life-saving care to children who were born as a result of an induced abortion. That's just false. There was a bill that came up in Illinois that was called the "Born Alive" bill that purported to require life-saving treatment to such infants. And I did vote against that bill. The reason was that there was already a law in place in Illinois that stated you always have to supply life-saving treatment to any infant under any circumstances, and this bill actually was designed to overturn Roe v. Wade, so I didn't think it was going to pass constitutional muster.

Ever since that time, emails have been sent out suggesting that, somehow, I would be in favor of letting an infant die in a hospital because of this particular vote. That's not a fair characterization, and that's not an honest characterization. It defies common sense to think that a hospital wouldn't provide life-saving treatment to an infant that was alive and had a chance of survival.

This excuse is not new, #7 from my January 2008 column, Obama's 10 reasons for supporting infanticide.

Even cursory thought on this would raise red flags in an analytical mind. If Born Alive were already codified in IL law, why did it finally pass the year after Obama left the IL state senate? Why did 98 US senators pass it unanimously, the US House pass it overwhelmingly, and the President sign it into law on the federal level?

But what's more, Obama purposefully misrepresented the Born Alive Infants Protection Act, using its name to describe the contents of another bill.

Born Alive was simple legislation defining when personhood begins for the purpose of IL law. The World Health Organization created this definition in 1950, and the UN adopted it in 1955. Born Alive required nothing. It was introduced 3x while Obama was state senator - 2001, 2002, and 2003. Read it here.

Here's where Obama tried to muddy the waters. Two companion bills were introduced with Born Alive.

1. The Induced Birth Infant Liability Act allowed a parent or public guardian to sue a doctor/hospital that did not provide medical care to an abortion survivor.

2. Another bill tried to close a loophole in the Illinois Abortion Law of 1975. Thanks to senators like Obama, that loophole still remains in place. The law states that an abortionist who thinks s/he might deliver a live viable baby has to call for a 2nd objective physician to care for the baby. The obvious loophole is that the person deciding pre-delivery whether or not a baby may be viable is the abortionist, invested in killing the child. Typical fox-guarding-hen-house scenario.

The aforementioned bill removed the "viability" factor and stated any abortion that might result in a baby being aborted alive had to have a 2nd physician at delivery to assess the baby.

Obama understood the loophole. Quoting from State Net March 5, 2002, while I was testifying during the IL Senate Judiciary Committee meeting:

OBAMA questions Stanek whether she thought situations were happening where doctors that make assessments that are liable have no regard for human life are letting that child die.

STANEK states a loophole in current law, states that a physician determines a fetus is viable and what's happening now is that they're determining this before the baby is aborted, therefore, at delivery they don't have a 2nd doctor there with them. These babies aren't being assessed....

OBAMA: ... My concern is what appears to be the doctors really don't care about children who are born with a reasonable prospect of life because they are so locked into their pro-abortion views that they would watch an infant that is viable die. That may be your assessment and I don't see evidence of that. What we are doing here is to create one more burden on a woman and I can't support that.

Obama not only misrepresented Born Alive during the Relevant interview, he misrepresented IL abortion law, which absolutely does not say, "you always have to supply life-saving treatment to any infant under any circumstances." He knew that during the hearings, and he knows that now.

Obama told Relevant it "defies common sense" that a hospital would let potentially viable babies die. But in actuality, it defies common sense that Obama played ignorant about an abortionist's obvious conflict of interest when delivering a live baby. It defies common sense that Obama would support infanticide if stopping it would get in the abortion industry's way. It defies common sense that Obama, who distrusts every other big business, does not distrust big abortion.

Last year members of CO Right to Life openly challenged National Right to Life's support (among others) of the Partial Birth Abortion Ban by taking out newspaper ads and threatening a class action lawsuit.

The disagreement culminated in CRTL hosting a hostile hospitality suite at the 2007 NRLC convention and being ousted as an affiliate.

That led to the formation of American Right to Life, which is now focused on establishing personhood at conception through state and federal legislative efforts.

At the just held NRLC convention, ARTL surprised everyone by hosting a hospitality suite at the Crystal City Hyatt where NRLC was meeting. This info comes from ARTL, reporting about its 1st day, July 3. The controversy didn't make LifeNews.com. Also didn't see any MSM coverage, although MSM surely had no clue what was going on....

Scores of NRTL conventioneers are streaming into the ARTL suites to enjoy good food and drink, and to consider the moral argument for the personhood strategy toward ending "legalized" child killing....

The Hyatt told ARTL that we could place a poster advertisement for our hospitality suite on a tripod in their lobby inviting folks to our Regency Suite to celebrate the "personhood amendment on CO's November ballot!" Four things happened immediately after Hyatt personnel placed our poster in their lobby....

First, pro-lifers immediately came to our suite. Second, NRTL officials insisted that the Hyatt remove our poster. Third, Hyatt removed our poster. Fourth, we held our first meeting with Hyatt officials.

Our ARTL hospitality suite was on the same floor as the John McCain's, although ours was twice as large and far nicer with flowers, red white and blue decorations, much better food and drink, shrimp cocktails, literature, DVDs, darkened theater, media center, better seating, etc.

However, after NRTL's complaint, the Hyatt officials maintained that even though ARTL is renting a significant section of the top floor of their hotel, and even though the Hyatt had posted our notice in their lobby, and even though they admitted that, "yes, we misrepresented that you could post your notice in our lobby," still, they would not restore our notice to its tripod.

Attorney James Odom, representing ARTL, told the hotel's general manager that since the Hyatt would not post our small poster board notice in the lobby as had been promised, we would hold signs in front of the hotel with enlarged versions of the poster, blown up to a huge 48-square feet. The hotel called in the Arlington VA police, and told ARTL officials that if they stood on the sidewalk in front of the hotel, they would be arrested.

Businesses and police officers often claim that protests in front of businesses are illegal, falsely claiming that public sidewalks are private property (rarely are sidewalks actually on private property). So, veteran street activist and ARTL spokesman Bob Enyart surveyed the scene and decided not to challenge the hotel's claim.

Instead, the protesters organized across the street. The front of the Hyatt is all glass, hundreds of hotel rooms, glass elevators, enormous lobby windows spanning two floors, etc. By holding signs on the sidewalk directly in front of the hotel, only those entering and leaving the hotel would see them. Instead, by standing across the street, ARTL's massive protest signs were visible and readable to the entire hotel!

We had a team of ten people hosting our hospitality suite. Within a couple hours, it was evident to all that not only the NRTL conventioneers, but at least a couple thousand people were aware that our ARTL hospitality suite was on the 18th floor. And they started streaming in.

Pro-life leaders. NEA teachers. Activists. Pro-life attorneys. Convention exhibitors. Pro-life teenagers. They just kept coming. We had lengthy talks with dozens of important people in the battle against abortion, from leaders in the anti-euthanasia movement, to reporters, to activists from Canada and Spain....

ARTL had set up a Lincoln Theater in their suite, equipped with a projector, and three PCs showing various DVDs: Focus on the Strategy, Romney Fairytale Ads, Forty Years in the Wilderness, and the Planned Parenthood racism YouTube video. When African American NEA teachers entered the suite, after they filled their plates with good food and sat around the living room, Leslie Hanks, longtime Denver pro-life leader, showed them the PP racism video to great effect!

Various regional pro-life leaders either came to our hospitality suite, or sent word wishing us well. We've been distributing the 600 copies of glossy and colorful ARTL literature and press releases we brought, as well as the 200 DVDs....

The National Right to Life Committee held its annual convention July 3-5 near DC. Most of its workshops were tightly controlled retreads led by centralized players, a real waste of the talents, ideas, thoughts, and accomplishments of state and local affiliates. (The inestimable question: Control at what cost?)

But its 2 keynote speakers, Fred Thompson and Karl Rove, scored points and made the news. MSM accentuated the negatives they said about Obama while burying McCain's positives.

This I don't necessarily mind. Given McCain's baggage as well as reticence thus far to make a public case for himself and against Obama on the pro-life issue, our motivator in 2008 will have to be hate, not love. And all the better to garner the independent vote if mainstream articles lead off with examples of Obama's radical abortion support.

Read ABC News, New York Times, and LifeNews.com coverage of the Rove speech.

Also read The New Republic's take on the convention, along with The Carpetbagger Report and Politico, which included a couple good lines by Thompson...

Calling the IL senator a "last gasp" of 1960s-era radicalism and "George McGovern without the experience," Thompson sternly warned the crowd that Obama would appoint Supreme Court justices unfriendly to their agenda.

Thompson noted that during his career in the IL Legislature, Obama opposed a version of the Born Alive Infants Protection Act, a bill that made it illegal to harm an infant born after surviving an abortion.

Observing that even the National Abortion Rights Advocacy League had not opposed this legislation, Thompson joked: "I trust [Obama] is explaining how he's to the left of NARAL during the religious outreach meetings he's holding."

[Rove photo courtesy of NRLC]