Why burden the decision?

I know everyone is probably sick to death by now of hearing stories about Kermit Gosnell's atrocities. For those who are reading this years from now (I flatter myself) and don't recall the story, Kermit Gosnell, MD is (or was) an abortionist in Pennsylvania who was recently arrested for, among other things, the murder of eight children who had been born alive during a late term abortion. The eight children are representative. It is believed he killed hundred of children that way, but these eight represent the "strongest case" for prosecutors to pursue.

There have been a virtual treasure trove of pro-lifers blogging on this incident. Some have focused on the fact that the main stream media almost completely suppressed the story, or how president Obama ignored this mass murderer while providing a dog and pony show over the killings by Jared Lee Loughner. We've heard how the DA virtually apologized for having to prosecute this man, and how state agencies and pro-abortion groups knew about the conditions and practices and ignored them.

I'd like to make two points. First off, these "horrible crimes" that Dr. Gosnell is being prosecuted for occur routinely in abortion clinic around the world, and in fact are legal as long as the baby is killed before it has completely emerged from the womb. In fact, in Virginia, what Dr. Gosnell did would be completely legal as long as he killed the child before cutting the umbilical cord. Here's an article on some of the finer points:

Yet the procedure that Gosnell is alleged to have preferred to implement in his practice is one that bears a strong resemblance to something several public officials have voted in support of as a U.S. Senators of "late term abortions." These procedures are more commonly referred to as "partial-birth abortions."

Both procedures begin by inducing early labor. Depending on how early, this alone will claim the life of roughly 76% of the pre-born children involved. Therefore in both cases roughly 25% of the pre-born children survive and a dilemma exists.

For parents who went seeking an abortion, a living child is exactly the opposite of what they wished.

In Gosnell's case he carried the delivery through to completion, it is alleged that he would then end the child's life by using a pair of scissors to snip the spinal cord.

With the majority of "partial-birth abortions" the medical practitioner would deliver the child to within two inches of being completely out of the birth canal, then using a pair of scissors, or a scalpel, would puncture the base of the head, and snip the spinal cord.

I bring this up specifically because partial birth abortion is a practice that is defended by none other than President Obama. He doesn't find anything wrong with partial birth abortion, and has voted against bills to ban the practice. His defense of his vote is that the bill did not have an exception for partial birth abortion to protect the life of the mother. This is despite testimony from multiple doctors and other experts that partial birth abortion is never required to save the life of the mother. And anyone with two brain cells to rub together can see that's clearly true.

In a partial birth abortion the baby is delivered and is killed as the last of its body leaves the mother. All one has to do is not insert the scissor into the brain and it's a live birth. It seems ludicrous to claim that inserting a pair of scissors into a baby's skull when the baby is already outside (except for part of the head) is required to save the mother's life. She has already delivered it.

The second point I'd like to make is that, not only does Obama not think partial birth abortion should be legal, he thinks what Kermit Gosnell did should be legal. In Illinois he several times voted against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act. His claim was that the act was secretly a wedge to allow people to attack Roe v. Wade down the line (why he thinks a state law would be allowed to overturn a supreme court ruling I can't imagine, but he is supposed to be some legal genius so perhaps there would be a way). But what's telling is that he was the only person to give a speech bashing the Born Alive Infant Protection Act. What he said reveals his position. In his own words, the bill

...is really designed simply to burden the original decision of the woman and the physician to induce labor and perform an abortion.

If you think this is just something out of context, go read the entire transcript. It is a succint summation of his argument. Now you can weasel word this and try to explain what he really meant, but don't tell me that Obama doesn't know enough about law to see that putting the decision of whether to save the life of an already born infant solely in the hands of the abortionist and mother effectively permits legal infanticide, just as Doe v. Bolton, by putting the decision of when an abortion was necessary solely in the hands of the abortionist and mother effectively permitted legal abortion up to birth.

Under the law President Obama has stated he thinks it should be, the decision as to whether to save those babies that Gosnell killed would have been solely in the hands of Gosnell. We have seen what Gosnell's decision was.

Posted in: abortion,Politics,Pro-Life