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NARAL/Pro-Choice America endorses Obama

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NARAL/Pro-Choice America surprised its members today by endorsing Barack Obama, prompting more than little angry chatter from rank and file members who support Hillary Clinton, or at the very least thought she deserved better in return for her longtime support.  For its part the Washington chapter remained both diplomatic and neutral:

“We have had the pleasure of having two strongly pro-choice presidential candidates in Senators Obama and Clinton,” said Karen Cooper, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Washington.  “Both have been advocates for the right to choose.  As a state affiliate, NARAL Pro-Choice Washington is remaining neutral at this time,” Cooper added.

In announcing the endorsement, NARAL national president Nancy Keenan explained:

NARAL Pro-Choice America PAC is making our endorsement now because every day that passes, Sen. McCain gets a free ride on the issue of choice. That free ride ends today.

There has been much talk about uncommitted superdelegates moving toward Obama in order to close the nomination process as quickly as possible, and it looks like national organizations like NARAL are adopting the same strategy.  It’s not a knock against Clinton, it’s just an acknowledgment of the political reality.

Comments

  1. 1

    When he was in Illinois state Senate. Obama would not let out of committee for a vote a bill that would give medical treatment for babies who survived abortion. One witness found that these babies were left on a utility shelf to die. Barack Obama would not hear of giving these babies treatment. It’s hard to fathom the callousness that leads him to prefer these infants be left on a shelf to die. That’s not something to be proud of.

  2. 2

    This is a well deserved endorsement. While a duel Obama/Hillary endorsement would have made sense back in January, it is a simple recognition of reality to give the sole endorsement to Obama now.

    Also, no one should underestimate what a star Obama is on reproductive choice issues. He was one of the most dependable legislators of Planned Parenthood and other abortion rights groups when he was in the Illinois Senate, where these issues were far more contentious than here in Washington.

    Oh, and about those present votes cast by Obama in the Illinois that Hillary made such a big issue of:

    Seven other times, he voted that way as part of a broad strategy devised by abortion rights advocates to counter anti-abortion bills.

    Pam Sutherland, president of Illinois Planned Parenthood Council, said Mr. Obama was one of the senators with a strong stand for abortion rights whom the organization approached about using the strategy. Ms. Sutherland said the Republicans were trying to force Democrats from conservative districts to register politically controversial no votes.

    Ms. Sutherland said Mr. Obama had initially resisted the strategy because he wanted to vote against the anti-abortion measures.

    “He said, ‘I’m opposed to this,’” she recalled.

    But the organization argued that a present vote would be difficult for Republicans to use in campaign literature against Democrats from moderate and conservative districts who favored abortion rights.

    Lisa Madigan, the Illinois attorney general who was in the Illinois Senate with Mr. Obama from 1998 through 2002, said she and Mr. Obama voted present on the anti-abortion bills.

    “It’s just plain wrong to imply that voting present reflected a lack of leadership,” Ms. Madigan said. “In fact, it was the exact opposite.”

    http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12.....nted=print

  4. 4

    Savor the ugly irony, my friends. The abortion industry, enriching itself by realizing Margaret Sanger’s dream of a monochrome America untainted by the tinted classes, continues its genocide against dark Americans while endorsing a dark American.

    And isn’t it ugly, ironic, and typical that so-called Partial Birth Goldstein is oblivious to the ugly irony.

  6. 6

    “Jill Stanek, who was a nurse at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn Ilinois testified in the U.S. congress in 2000 and 2001 about how “induced labor abortions” were handled at her hospital.

    “One night…a nursing co-worker was taking an aborted Down’s Syndrome baby who was born alive to our soiled Utility Room because his parents did not want to hold him, and she did not have to time to hold him. I COULDN’T BEAR THE THOUGHT OF THIS SUFFERING CHILD LYING ALONE IN A SOILED UTILITY ROOM so I cradled and rocked him for the 45 minutes that he lived.”

    In 2001 (note the year) Illinois state Sen Patrick O’Malley introduced three bills to help such babies….(one being almost identical to the Born-Alive Infant Protection Act President Bush signed in 2002)…

    Stanek testified about these bills in the Illinois State Senate Judicary Committee, where Obama served. (She told an interviewer) that he was “unfazed” by her story of holdilng the baby who survived an induced labor abortion.

    On the Illinois Senate floor, Obama was the only senator to speak against the baby-protecting bills. He voted “present” on each, effectively the same as a “no.” (duh) In 2002 when the Illinois version came up again Obama voted “NO.”
    Later when democrats took over the Ill. state senate, Obama became the chair of the Health and Human services committee. This bill was again referred to his committee and this time he wouldn’t even let it out of his committee, even though it had added wording that a federal version had which resulted in a 98-0 U.S. senate approval of it.
    Obama claimed in his U.S. senate run against Keyes that he would have supported the federal version, even though he killed exactly the same bill on the state level.

    Oh. My.

  7. 7

    Michele @ 1
    What a load of horseshit. Any medical professional anywhere in the country who place a baby on a shelf to die would be prosecuted for murder. Do you ever engage your brain before spewing?

  8. 8

    Surprise Surprise, the people who side with abortion understand the Constitution.

    That would be a Demcorat, and not people who get behind Illegal Wiretapping Program against innocent Americans.

    See if you get the connection, Big Guy.

  9. 9

    ” … people who side with abortion understand the Constitution.”

    Oh, right! The Constitutional right to infanticide! How did we forget?

  12. 12

    6
    There’s way more to this story than what you present. I’ll leave it to someone better at internet research to find the rest of the story. Any baby that’s born alive gets medical treatment. If such does not happen, it’s not because of something missing in state law, it’s because of malpractice within the medical facility where such occurs. Have you ever heard of the Hippocratic Oath? Lord, you people are naive.

  14. 14

    #12: Why yes, I’ve heard of the Hippocratic Oath. Some of it goes like this (translated from the greek):

    “I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients …and never do harm to anyone.”

    (and here’s the one that will make #12 sorry he ever brought this up…READY??)

    “NOR WILL I GIVE A WOMAN A PESSARY TO PROCURE ABORTION.” (pessary is defined in wiki; just look it up).

    Yes, THAT HIPPOCRATIC OATH, #12.

  16. 16

    @ What’sittoya: Wow that is a SAD and despicable story! I did not know that about Obama. Thanks for pointing the story out…more research for me! ;-)

  17. 17

    8. GBS spews:
    Surprise Surprise, the people who side with abortion understand the Constitution.

      
    My bad, I forgot the 41st amendment. The right to an abortion.
      
    I was kidding, I couldn’t find it. Can you direct me to the amendment that guarantees the right to an abortion?

  18. 18

    Here’s something NARAL supports: Dilation and evacuation for 2nd term babies. Here’s how it’s done—

    Abortionists reach into the dilated cervix and grab the baby’s arm with forceps and keep twisting it until the arm is torn off, then they pull it out. They go in and grab other limbs like a leg with the forceps and twist until it is torn off. One by one. Piece by piece, they maim and dismember. when only the head is left, they crush it and then pull it out. All the body parts must be reassembled on the table “to make sure they got it all” before they throw it all away. That reassembled baby must be some picture, huh?

  19. 19

    ..but wait—head? Arms? legs? grabbable? But I thought NARAL and its followers told us that this was “just a blob of tissue”? That doesn’t SOUND like just a blob of tissue!?

    Precisely.

  20. 20

    …not to mention what a great time the baby must be having, helplessly having his or her limbs torn off while alive, piece by piece. Fun for the whole family (not).

  22. 22

    ..and #4, everything you said is absolutely spittin’ true. And YET these people on this website seem to agree with it while calling EVERYONE ELSE racist! AMAZING

  24. 24

    What a load of propaganda. That woman’s testimony was written for her by the forced-birth lobby, and I’m sure it has as much relationship to the truth as most Republican uttereances; that is, distant, twisted, and tenuous.

    Abortion is legal throughout the United States on the basis if a long series of Supreme Court decisions including Griswold v. Connecticut, which established that the state may not violate the people’s right to privacy. One’s right to private medical decisions and a woman’s control over her body free of state interference is an extension of this.

  25. 25

    Donkoinfanticide? You mean the PuddyFact#8 with all those aborted babies that would have voted Al Gorebasm as president if the lefties didn’t kill their own? Isn’t that the law of unintended consequences?

    Wow, we escaped that one. Imagine… the number of starving people overseas would be doubled if AL Gorebasm was president and he pushed his Ethanol initiative like he flip-flopped on abortion. Maybe that’s why he lost Tennessee in 2000?

  27. 27

    Number of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq War: 4,077 and climbing
    Number of abortions in the United States since
    Iraq War began: 6,793,221 and climbing
    Ratio of U.S. abortions to U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq: 1,666 to 1

  28. 28

    Marvin Stamn @ 17:

    I didn’t think you knew enough about the Constitution to understand the connection between abortion and President Bush’s illegal wiretapping program.

    Since you’re too fucking stooooooopid I’ll try to summarize it for you without big words. My only regret is that I cannot use crayons for you in this medium to make even easier for you to understand.

    The SCOTUS based their decision Roe v Wade on the 4th Amendment’s RIGTH TO PRIVACY between a woman and her doctor.

    See, Liberals understand government has a very useful purpose serving the needs of Americans, but it doesn’t need to be in our private lives. That’s BIG government.

    See fuck head, you can’t have it both ways. You cannot be for “small” government” while you allow government into the privacy of your doctors office.

    The next thing you know unknowing idiots like yourself will be happy to let the government inspect you banking records, phone records, what you’re reading at the library, listening on your private phone calls domestic or otherwise.

    All in the name of National Security, of course.

    You fool. You know NOTHING about our government, the Constitution, or our liberal foundings.

  29. 29

    GBS, wasn’t the 4th Amendment the same right to privacy argument over Rush Limbaugh’s oxycotin experiment the reason the lefties are apoplectic over the ACLU support for him?

    So how is one good and the other bad?

    Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm………………?

  30. 30

    #24: How do you know that Ms. Danek made it all up or that someone fabricated it all for her and there’s no truth whatsoever to her testimony? How did you find this out?

  31. 31

    17 MS

    I’ve got yer AMendment right here…

    Article the eleventh [Amendment IX]
    The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

  32. 32

    It seems that the Hospital’s policy was totally justifiable, but they have changed that policy since because of the political pressure from the forced-birth lobby and the subsequent passage of the really weird ” Born Alive Infants Protection Act.”

    It also appears as though Jill Stanek had no corroborating witnesses to the events she related. Hmmmmm, right. So they really happened, huh?

    In rare cases, a fetus may have a fatal deformity, (e.g. anencephaly or lack of a brain), but is still born alive. Other fetuses which are normal but are born at 22 weeks or less gestation also show signs of life. In both situations, they have zero chance of surviving long-term. No treatment is possible for their condition. Most hospitals have a policy to give these newborns comfort care. This involves keeping the them warm and well fed. The medical professionals treat any any discomfort that the newborn is experiencing. They typically die within a few hours or perhaps a day or two.

    At least one hospital in the U.S. handled other unusual cases differently. The Judicial Committee heard from nurses from Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, IL. They reported instances of fetuses who had serious but not life-threatening disabilities. Two common problems are:

    – Downs Syndrome: This is a genetic disorder that causes the child to be developmentally delayed. The degree of disability from this disorder covers a wide range.
    – A neural tube defect (NTD). Spina bifida is the most common type. This often results in a degree of leg paralysis, and problems controlling their bladder and bowel functions. About 70% of children with the most severe form of Spina Bifida will be able to walk, perhaps with assistive devices.

    These disabilities are often detected during pregnancy. Sometimes the pregnant woman will choose to have “induced labor” or “live-birth abortion” before the fetus is full-term. Christ Hospital’s policy was to give only comfort care to the newborns after birth until they died. No evaluations were made whether the newborns could have survived if given appropriate medical assistance. One nurse testified that a live-birth abortion was performed on a healthy infant at more than 23 weeks gestation. This is a time at which premature infants have about a 40% chance of survival, although usually with serious disabilities. The newborn was given only comfort care and died about 2½ hours later. The hospital has since changed its policies. It now performs live-birth abortions only on fatally-deformed fetuses.

  35. 35

    DL, if Born Alive Infant Protections Act is so weird, why would Obama claim he would have been for it? (even though that’s highly questionable) Why did 98 senators vote yes? What was so weird that all the democrats in US Senate voted yes?

  36. 36

    ..and btw, since DL claims Danek made the whole thing up and that no one else had anything to say about these events, you should know that Nurse Danek AND a fellow employee from the same hospital, Allison Baker RN, both testified before congress in 2000 about what they witnessed. Those who would like to read how aborted live infants have been treated in this country can read it at

    http://www.priestsforlife.org/.....ngress.htm

    to read a reproduction of the subcommittee’s report.

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