Terence Jeffrey writes:
He is so pro-abortion he refused as an Illinois state senator to support legislation to protect babies who survived late-term abortions because he did not want to concede -- as he explained in a cold-blooded speech on the Illinois Senate floor -- that these babies, fully outside their mothers' wombs, with their hearts beating and lungs heaving, were in fact "persons." (more)
I quoted Larry Kudlow on Obama's liberal voting record over a year ago.
** Update: 4/28/08 - Nat Hentoff, after initially supporting Obama, now registers dissent after learning of Obama's extremist views on abortion.
But on abortion, Mr. Obama is an extremist. He has opposed the Supreme Court decision that finally upheld the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act against that form of infanticide. Most startlingly, for a professed humanist, Mr. Obama in the Illinois Senate also voted against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act. I have reported on several of those cases, when, before the abortion was completed, an alive infant was suddenly in the room. It was disposed of as a horrified nurse who was not necessarily pro-life followed the doctors' orders to put the baby in a pail or otherwise get rid of the child.
As a longtime columnist, John Leo, has written of this form of fatal discrimination, these "mistakes" during an abortion, once born, cannot be "killed or allowed to die simply because they are unwanted." Furthermore, as National Right to Life News" in its April issue included in its account of Mr. Obama's actual votes on abortion, he "voted to kill a bill that would have required an abortionist to notify at least one parent before performing an abortion on a minor girl from another state." These are conspiracies (and that's the word) by pro-abortion extremists to transport a minor girl across state lines from where she lives, unbeknownst to her parents. This assumes that a minor fully understands the consequences of that irredeemable act.
As I was researching this presidential candidate's views on the unilateral "choice" that takes another's life, I heard on the radio what Mr. Obama said during a Johnstown, Pa., town-hall meeting on March 29 as he was discussing the continuing dangers of exposure to HIV/AIDS infections: "When it comes specifically to HIV/AIDS, the most important prevention is education, which should include abstinence education and teaching children, you know, that sex is not something casual. But it should also include other, you know, information about contraception because, look, I've got two daughters, 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals.
"But if they make a mistake," Mr. Obama continued, "I don't want them punished with a baby." Among my children and grandchildren are two daughters and three granddaughters; and when I hear anyone, including a presidential candidate, equate having a baby as punishment, I realize with particular force the impact that the millions of legal abortions in this country have had on respect for human life.
On Feb. 27, testifying before the Wisconsin Senate Committee on Health and Human Services, were a number of young witnesses from a pro-life organization, among them 15-year-old Mariah Smet: "Whenever we talk about abortion, suddenly it's not an unborn child anymore. Instead, people use words like 'fetus' or 'embryo' or 'blob of tissue.'... After an abortion, there is nothing except death... 22 percent of all pregnancies end in abortion, and 47 percent of women having abortions have had more than one."