Just How Radically Liberal Is Obama?

So, just how radically liberal is Sen. Barack Obama?

So radical that as an Illinois state senator he voted THREE times against the “Born Alive Infant Protection Act” (a fourth time he cast one of his infamous “Present” votes) and then used his chairmanship of the Illinois State Senate’s Health & Human Services Committee to even prevent the bill from coming to a vote.

Obama also voted against the “Induced Infant Liability Act,” which reads:

Section 5. Findings and intent. The General Assembly finds that all children who are born alive are entitled to equal protection under the law regardless of the circumstances surrounding the birth. Children who are born alive as the result of an induced labor abortion or any other abortion are in special need of protection due to the fact that the intent of their birth is to cause the death of the born child. Therefore, it is the intent of the General Assembly to protect a child who is born alive as the result of an induced labor abortion or any other abortion and to ensure that the child receives all medical care necessary to preserve and protect the life, health, and safety of the child.

Section 10. Induced labor abortion; actions. If a child is born alive after an induced labor abortion or any other abortion, a parent of the child or the public guardian of the county in which the child was born may maintain an action on the child’s behalf for damages, including all costs of care to preserve and protect the life, health, and safety of the child, punitive damages, costs of suit, and attorney’s fees, against any hospital, health care facility, or health care provider who harms or neglects the child or fails to provide medical care to the child after the child’s birth. Any damages recovered shall be used to pay for the cost of preserving and protecting the life, health, and safety of the child. If the child does not survive, the balance remaining after the costs of preserving and protecting the life, health, and safety of the child are paid shall be deposited into the Neonatal Care and Perinatal Hospice Fund.

Yes, Barack Obama opposed bills that would have mandated medical treatment for children that survived abortions. Living children outside of the womb.

So, is there a reason for such a bill in the first place? Apparently so.  From the testimony of Jill Stanek, a labor and delivery nurse at Christ Hospital and Medical Center in Oak Lawn, Illinois:  

Other coworkers have told me about incidences of live aborted babies whom they have cared for. A Support Associate told me about a live aborted baby who was left to die on the counter of the Soiled Utility Room, wrapped in a disposable towel. This baby was accidentally thrown into the garbage, and when they later were going through the trash to find the baby, the baby fell out of the towel and on to the floor. A nursing coworker told me about an incident she was involved in last spring that she said “I just can’t stop thinking about.” She participated in the abortion of a healthy 23-1/7 week baby who was given no medical assessments or care after delivery, but was allowed to languish for 2-1/2 hours until she died, even though she showed early signs of thriving.

Just three weeks after this baby was aborted, another mother came to the hospital under similar circumstances, carrying an identically aged baby, and she was offered the same options. But she said that she wanted her baby. And so present at her delivery – because Christ Hospital is a Level III mother/baby care hospital — was a neonatologist, a pediatric resident, a pediatric nurse, and a respiratory therapist – all assigned specifically to take care of that little girl at delivery. And for the two days that I tracked her, that little girl lived. Christ Hospital is one of only 11 hospitals that the State of Illinois has designated as a level III perinatal institution — its highest ranking — which means that Christ Hospital is considered to have both the best equipment and the most highly trained medical personnel care for the sickest of the sick mothers and babies.

THAT is how radically liberal Sen. Barack Obama is.  Willing to leave children born alive outside the womb to die alone among hospital waste in the trash.  Just remember that the next time he compares himself and his experience to that of Abraham Lincoln.

August 25, 2004, Chicago Sun-Times cartoon by Jack Higgins