It appears that Gianna Jessen’s ad has really rattled the Obama campaign.
They’ve now come up with an ad in response (one which tries to blame John McCain for running the original ad, even though it was produced by a different organization):
There’s just one problem with the Obama campaign’s ad: his record. Here’s what he had to say on the subject when he wasn’t running for office (scroll down to p. 87):
[I]f we’re placing a burden on the doctor that says you have to keep alive a previable child as long as possible and give them as much medical attention as—as is necessary to try to keep that child alive, then we’re probably crossing the line in terms of unconstitutionality.
Personally, I agree with Yuval Levin on this one:
So a child who has been born and is living and breathing outside the womb can’t get medical care because by some legal definition he or she is “pre-viable”? That doesn’t sound like always supporting medical care to protect infants.
And here’s audio of another statement by Sen. Obama on the issue:
The truth here is that
Barack Obama defended infanticide in the Illinois statehouse. He voted against protecting children who survive abortions—viable children were left to die in a Illinois hospital and he would not take legislative action to make that a clear criminal act.
In other words: Sen. Obama, Gianna Jessen isn’t lying—you are. Which is odd, because doesn’t the Left always tell us that pro-lifers are “extremists” who are “out of touch” and “out of the mainstream”? If that’s so, why wouldn’t you stand by your vote and your record, instead of running from it?
I really, really, really wish that there was a political party that valued *both* infants and poor people in the Middle East and didn’t support killing thousands, or hundreds of thousands, or millions, of either for the sake of a misapplication of values – be it “security” or “choice”.
Well, a *major* party anyway.
This stuff is by far the most damning thing to come to light about Obama. Most of the rest of what I hear is just the usual election-time stupidity, or things that only people like Rush Limbaugh are genuinely concerned about.
So, at some point, maybe we’ll figure out how to do politics in a way that *doesn’t* kill innocent people as a matter of course. Probably not, but we can hope, right?
I agree with much of what you say; but you know, Doug, you are to some extent being ungracious here. One may, after all, value poor people in the Middle East and yet not favor your preferred policies to help them. One might, for instance, consider that the best way to help people in a given country is to overthrow the tyrant who is grinding their faces into the dirt and killing them as befits his paranoia, and to replace him with a government which will respond to their desire to escape poverty.
Just saying.