Even from the outset, Obama’s rationale for opposing the infant protection legislation was flawed. As a constitutional law professor would certainly know, an Illinois state statute cannot, in any meaningful way, “undermine” a federal constitutional right that has been clearly enunciated by the Supreme Court (if there were ever deemed to be a conflict between the two, the state statute would have to fall). But what’s even more revealing is that for Obama, the bill’s speculative, abstract impact on abortion rights outweighed facts before him about living babies apparently being left without medical care to die -- including testimony from a nurse who had held an infant born alive after an abortion for 45 minutes before the baby finally expired.
That’s why it’s raises eyebrows when Barack Obama suddenly emerges as the Senate champion of preventing stillbirths and “sudden unexpected infant death” (emphasis added). It seems that, for him, the adjective “unexpected” makes all the difference.
Given Obama’s recent, transparent efforts to move to the center on a variety of issues, it’s hard not to suspect that he’s using S.3142 to blunt the obvious callousness of his previous abortion-rights extremism. Would Barack Obama really play politics with babies’ lives?
Carol Platt Liebau
Carol Platt Liebau is an attorney, political commentator and guest radio talk show host based near New York. Learn more about her new book, "Prude: How the Sex-Obsessed Culture Hurts Young Women (and America, Too!)"
here.