(CNSNews.com) - In response to a political ad noting that Barack opposed a bill protecting babies who survive late-term abortions, the Obama campaign has produced an ad of its own, accusing the woman speaking in the ad -- herself a late-term abortion survivor -- of telling “a despicable lie.”
“Can you imagine not giving babies their basic human rights, no matter how they entered our world? My name is Gianna Jessen, born 31 years ago after a failed abortion. I’m a survivor, as are many others . . . but if Barack Obama had his way, I wouldn’t be here,” says the ad produced by bornalivetruth.org.
The Obama campaign's response, an ad featuring a photograph of Jessen, says Obama's votes against the Born Alive Infant Act, cast when Obama was an Illinois state senator, have been “taken out of context” and that “Obama’s always supported medical care to protect infants.”
“I think it’s interesting that he would say we are basically taking votes out of context,” Jessen told CNSNews.com. “I don’t know how you can take a vote out of context. It’s a vote.”
While Obama was in the Illinois State Senate, bills introduced in 2001, 2002 and 2003 were designed to ensure that newborns who survived abortions would be treated as a “person” with a right to the same equal protection of the law as any other person under the 14th Amendment.
When the bill came up in 2001, Obama voted “present,” which in the Illinois Senate had the same effect as a “no” vote.
In 2002, when the bill came up again, Obama voted “no.”
That same year, a similar bill became federal law when, at the insistence of Democrats, language was added to protect Roe v. Wade from any impact of the law. It passed the U.S. Senate by unanimous consent.
In 2003, as reported in January by CNSNews.com Editor-in-Chief Terence Jeffrey, the Illinois version of the Born Alive Infant Act, along with a Roe-v-Wade shield amendment identical to the language added to the federal version of the bill, was assigned to the Illinois Senate Health and Human Services Committee, which Obama then chaired.
Obama’s committee first approved the amendment, making the Illinois bill virtually identical to the federal law, and then voted 4-6 on party lines against passing the bill as amended. Obama voted “no.”
Obama nonetheless has said he would have supported the federal law because it protected Roe v. Wade.
During his presidential campaign, he has denied charges by critics, including the National Right to Life Committee, who say his vote to block the amended bill in his Illinois State Senate committee is inconsistent with this claim.
Jessen told CNSNews.com that the Obama campaign’s use of her photograph is a “good thing.”
“I think it shows my story is effective,” said Jessen, who despite being born with cerebral palsy has run marathons, is an accomplished singer and a motivational speaker who takes her pro-life message to venues around the country.
Jessen said pro-abortion advocates are ignoring technological advances that offer more evidence about human development in the womb.
“Abortion proponents seem to ignore medical science,” she said. “How can you have in-utero surgery going on in one wing of the hospital and abortion in another wing?”
Jessen added that protecting babies who survive abortion goes beyond the abortion debate. “We are not talking about children inside the womb, we are talking about living, breathing children outside of the womb,” she said.
When the Illinois version of the Born Alive Infant act first came to the Illinois Senate floor in 2001, Obama spoke against it, after engaging in a colloquy with its sponsor, Sen. Patrick O’Malley.
“I do want to just make sure everybody in the Senate knows what this bill is about, as I understand it,” Obama said. “Senator O’Malley, the testimony during the committee indicated that one of the key concerns was -- is that there was a method of abortion, where the -- the fetus or child, as -- as some might describe it, is still temporarily alive outside the womb. And one of the concerns that came out in the testimony was the fact they were not being properly cared for during this brief period of time that they were still living. Is that correct?”
Obama went on to question whether the law would pass constitutional muster if the “child … temporarily alive outside the womb” was called a “person.”
“Number one, whenever we define a pre-viable fetus as a person that is protected by the Equal Protection clause or the other elements in the Constitution, what we’re really saying is, in fact, that they are persons that are entitled to the kinds of protections that would be provided to a--a child, a nine-month-old child that was delivered to term. That determination then, essentially, if it was accepted by a court, would forbid abortions to take place.”
While debating related legislation on April 4, 2002, Obama stated his concern about abortionists:
“As I understand it, this puts the burden on the attending physician who has determined, since they were performing this procedure, that, in fact, this is a nonviable fetus; that if that fetus, or child -- however way you want to describe it -- is now outside the mother's womb and the doctor continues to think that it's nonviable but there's, let's say, movement or some indication that, in fact, they're not just coming out limp and dead, that, in fact, they would then have to call a second physician to monitor and check off and make sure that this is not a live child that could be saved.”
When asked by CNSNews.com if she wanted to add anything to the interview, Jessen was quick to respond.
“I have forgiven my biological mother for what she’s done,” said Jessen, who was adopted. “I think that’s an equally important message to get out.”