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Barack Obama & Abortion: No
Hope For Unborn.
Supports Freedom of Choice Act Which Could Criminalize
Pro-Life Speech, Opposed Born Alive Infants Protection Act..
"The first thing I will do as President is sign the
Freedom of Choice Act."
Senator Barack Obama, address to the Planned Parenthood
Action Fund, July 17, 2007.
Senator Barack Obama is trying to position himself as
being above politics on abortion and a unifying candidate
who transcends division on the issue. His promise to
Planned Parenthood to sign the "Freedom of Choice Act"
and his opposition to the Born
Alive Infant Protection Act shows that nothing
could be further from the truth.
What is the “The
Freedom of Choice Act?”
The “Freedom of Choice Act” is a bill that would
not only enshrine the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade
decision which struck down abortion laws in all 50 states
and legalized abortion throughout pregnancy, it would
invalidate “every federal, state, and local statute,
ordinance, regulation, administrative order, decision,
policy, practice, or other action enacted, adopted, or
implemented before, on, or after the date of enactment of
this act.”
That means that The Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA)
would eradicate the Court approved ban against barbaric
partial birth abortions and laws requiring parental
notification or consent, or judicial authorization, before
an abortion can be performed on our minor daughters. FOCA
would also invalidate restrictions on taxpayer funding of
abortion, laws prohibiting abortions in government-
operated hospitals and informed consent provisions
requiring that girls and women seeking abortion receive
certain information on matters such as fetal development
and alternatives to abortion. Laws requiring waiting
periods to think it over would be erased too. These are
consequences trumpeted by proponents of The Freedom of
Choice Act.
Other laws and regulations to be repealed by FOCA would
include conscience laws allowing doctors, nurses, or other
state- licensed professionals, hospitals and insurers to
decline to provide or pay for abortions. Clinic safety
regulations and laws prohibiting medical personal other
than doctors from performing an abortion would also be
abolished.
FOCA would also limit political free speech. Government
officials could become targets of lawsuits for anything
that anyone thinks discriminates against abortion,
including pro- life speeches by public officials. National
Right to Life's Douglas Johnson says, "This sweeping
mandate means, among other things, that statement or
action by any government official, including any elected
official, and any government program of any kind, could be
legally attacked if someone thought it discriminated
against abortion... This sweeping mandate would cover
everything from rural health clinics, to health education
programs in public schools, to pro- life speeches by
public officials."
The Freedom of Choice Act
would have a chilling effect on free speech and
rights of conscience.
Senator Obama says he would sign this law that could
put pro-lifers in legal jeopardy for their views on
abortion. Is that the meaning of the new politics
Obama is trumpeting?
Obama also opposed a
Born Alive Infant Protection Act
when he was a State Senator in Illinois.
The Born Alive Infants Protection Act
was passed in 2002 and ensures that infants,
who are born alive at any stage of development, are
individual human beings who are entitled to the full
protections of the law. This law provides guaranteed legal
protection whether or not the infant's delivery was
natural or the result of an abortion. Nearly everyone
supports this, but not Senator Obama.
The House and Senate, after initial opposition from NARAL Pro-Choice America, voted
unanimously to pass the bill. In 2001, while still an
Illinois State Senator, Obama was the sole opponent of a
Born Alive Infants Protection bill. In 2003 a year after
the Born Alive Infants Protection Act was passed by the
Congress, identical language was considered by an Illinois
Senate committee. The committee's chairman led the attack
that defeated the bill. That chairman was Barack Obama.
In Obama's world there's no hope for preborn children or
children born preterm.
We are in another important election for pro- lifers. We
are near one of our most important goals, replacing
pro-abortion Supreme Court justices with pro-life ones to
overturn Roe. This is the day we have worked to see for decades. It's a
moment that may not come for another generation.
Pro- lifers should be clear, presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama,
like Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, is no friend of life
and would prevent pro-lifers from getting control of the
Court and would sign legislation undoing pro-life laws and
would use his powers to overturn pro-life policies.
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