"post birth abortion"...is that even a medical term?
Exactly what I was thinking. It's absolutely not a medical term, and it's inherently illogical. Like saying "post death murder."
Illinois already had a law on the books requiring medical care be given to any child delivered alive, even if such delivery resulted from an attempted abortion. From
720 ILCS 510/6:
(b) Subsequent to the abortion, if a child is born alive, the physician required by Section 6(2)(a) to be in attendance shall exercise the same degree of professional skill, care and diligence to preserve the life and health of the child as would be required of a physician providing immediate medical care to a child born alive in the course of a pregnancy termination which was not an abortion. Any such physician who intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly violates Section 6(2)(b) commits a Class 3 felony.
The bills in question would have contained language saying that a pre-viable fetus which showed any vital signs after an attempted abortion would be considered a "person." The concern was that this could be the nose under the tent whereby a pre-viable fetus still in utero might also be considered a "person." Obama voted against 2 bills with this language because of this concern. And he also said that the existing law above already covered the issue. The Federal Born Alive Infant Protection Act contains a clause specifically exempting a pre-viable fetus,
in utero, from "personhood." In 2003, a bill with exactly that language was introduced. Though Obama said he would have voted for it, it died in committee (of which he was chairman.) He later realized he had misspoken about his supporting such language and tried to clarify by saying that an acceptable bill had to specify that Illinois
state law, as well as federal law, exempted a pre-viable fetus from personhood. A bill with this language did eventually pass in Illinois after BO was in the US Senate.
These fine technical points of wording are what lawyers feed on. If the language of a law isn't made absolutely crystal clear and as specific as possible, it could be twisted into meaning the exact opposite of what was intended. BO doesn't hide the fact that he supports Roe V. Wade, and I don't fault him for voting against a bill that might be construed as contradictory to Roe. (I'd think the existing law really does seem adequate.) But he should not have said he would have supported a certain bill, when he clearly did not. Maybe he was honestly confused over exactly what he did support. Maybe he was dissembling. In any case, it was a blunder, and voters can interpret it as they want. But saying BO supports infanticide is a wild and totally non-credible exaggeration.
