Home » Kent Brandenburg » Is the Post-Birth Abortion Claim a Lie?

Is the Post-Birth Abortion Claim a Lie?

Presidential Debate Point

One talking point after the debate between President Biden and President Trump was Trump lied every time he spoke.  Almost every Biden surrogate used this talking point and I believe it got some leverage afterwards, despite the historically bad performance by President Biden.  The most referred “lie” by the pundits after the debate was Trump’s claim that Democrats even supported abortion after birth.  Again and again they talked about that as a lie.

The Democrat support of also murdering babies born alive after botched abortions is a true and real thing.  It would be worth reading former federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy’s piece in 2008 at the National Review.  You should read the whole article.  McCarthy produced this following quote (a transcript) from then state Senator Obama, who voted against a bill to save those babies (italics provided by author in same way as original article):

Illinois State Senator Obama

SENATOR OBAMA: Let me just go to the bill, very quickly. Essentially, I think as — as this emerged during debate and during committee, the only plausible rationale, to my mind, for this legislation would be if you had a suspicion that a doctor, the attending physician, who has made an assessment that this is a nonviable fetus and that, let’s say for the purpose of the mother’s health, is being — that — that — labor is being induced, that that physician

(a) is going to make the wrong assessment and (b) if the physician discovered, after the labor had been induced, that, in fact, he made an error, or she made an error, and, in fact, that this was not a nonviable fetus but, in fact, a live child, that that physician, of his own accord or her own accord, would not try to exercise the sort of medical measures and practices that would be involved in saving that child.

Obama Continued

State Senator Obama continued:

Now, it — if you think there are possibilities that doctors would not do that, then maybe this bill makes sense, but I — I suspect and my impression is, is that the Medical Society suspects as well that doctors feel that they would be under that obligation, that they would already be making these determinations and that, essentially, adding a — an additional doctor who then has to be called in an emergency situation to come in and make these assessments is really designed simply to burden the original decision of the woman and the physician to induce labor and perform an abortion.

Now, if that’s the case — and — and I know that some of us feel very strongly one way or another on that issue — that’s fine, but I think it’s important to understand that this issue ultimately is about abortion and not live births. Because if these are children who are being born alive, I, at least, have confidence that a doctor who is in that room is going to make sure that they’re looked after.

Never Rescinded

Democrats or Obama have not rescinded those remarks.  They have spun them to cover, but this is what they think.  They believe this.  If a baby survives the abortion, Democrats favor allowing the doctor legal cover for following through with an abortion.  It’s true.  That’s no longer an abortion per se, and someone might argue that, but that’s not really an argument.  They are finishing after birth what they unsuccessfully tried before the baby exited the mother’s birth canal.

I understand the confusion. If you allow for murder before the baby exits, but you fail at that murder and the baby survives, what difference does it make if you murder the baby after he’s on the operating table?  Everyone knows it’s a murder either way.

Boxer in the House of Representatives

Barbara Boxer, the former congresswoman from California, famously said in a debate on the floor of the House with Rick Santorum that the life of a child begins when they take the baby home from the hospital.  George Will wrote about this in a column at Newsweek:

In the 1999 colloquy, Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) said: Suppose during this procedure the baby slips entirely from the mother’s birth canal. “You agree, once a child is born, is separated from the mother, that that child is protected by the Constitution and cannot be killed? Do you agree with that?” Boxer: “I think when you bring your baby home, when your baby is born … the baby belongs to your family and has all the rights.”

Santorum persisted: “Obviously, you don’t mean they have to take the baby out of the hospital for it to be protected by the Constitution. Once the baby is separated from the mother, you would agree—completely separated from the mother—you would agree that the baby is entitled to constitutional protection?” She would not say “yes.” Instead, she said, understandably: “I don’t want to engage in this.”

When Trump talks about post-birth abortion, he talks about the stream of thought and evidence above and more.  The hired fact checkers of the Democrat Party don’t like what it does to their abortion argument, but he is right to take the abortion argument that direction.  It is an instinctive and successful negotiating tactic of President Trump.  If it were a lie, he’d have no evidence for his point.  Yet, he and other Republicans do.

Jill Stanek

Democrats say infanticide is illegal in every state.  It is a matter of defining terms.  In the testimony for the “Born Alive Bill” in Illinois, a practicing nurse, Jill Stanek, said that babies born alive after a botched abortion live 10% to 20% of the time.  The Wikipedia article on this episode reads:

Stanek generated national news during the 2008 Presidential campaign when publicizing Barack Obama’s four votes against Illinois’ Born Alive Infants Protection Act while state senator, as well as his state senate floor testimony. She posted a vote tally on her blog showing that, during a March 12, 2003, meeting of the Illinois State Senate’s Health and Human Services Committee, Committee Chairman Barack Obama prevented the passage of an amendment to Bill 1082 that would have conveyed “the rights of personhood upon any fetus expelled or extracted from the womb if that fetus was capable of breathing or voluntary motion.”

How Democrats Support Infanticide

Democrats might oppose infanticide (that particular word), but do they support the prosecution of doctors who kill living babies outside the mother’s womb, the ones who survive the abortion?  They won’t answer that question.  Trump is right to go on the offensive on this point the way he does.  The Democrat position explains how Boxer could have said what she did in her interchange with Santorum in the House of Representatives.  These three pieces of evidence, Obama as an Illinois state senator, Boxer in the House, and Jill Stanek as an eyewitness, indicate that Democrats do support post birth abortion.  I would contend those are examples to which Trump referred in the debate.

It hurts Democrats on the abortion issue to reveal such an extreme as post-birth abortion.  However, they have never nullified these examples given.  They don’t disassociate themselves from Obama and Boxer, who took these positions.  It is not a large distance between murder in the womb and murder outside of it.


8 Comments

  1. It’s interesting to me that you wrote this without making one negative remark about what Trump said about abortion. I see no difference in the pill vs. partial birth abortion.

    Why not at least condemn what Trump said and his position? That’s not a jab, it’s a genuine question.

    • I think you probably know why I wouldn’t state with the post opposition to Trump’s inconsistent abortion position. I want an absolutely pure position, but with the triangulated one of Trump, you get three conservative justices that overturn Roe V. Wade. Reagan didn’t do that. Bush didn’t do that. No one thought it possible. We should rejoice. In the debate, Trump also defended those who took a stronger position than he, saying that’s a respectful position and unloaded then on the extreme. I thought he handled it well actually for what he was facing in that Den of Lions. Your comment was respectful, no offense at all. I just thought I’d get bombarded by the normal loonies. Maybe they’re still coming, or they’re afraid to be seen to be supporting abortion if they attacked this post.

      • Maybe some do. I don’t think they support a baby being born naturally and healthy then being killed. I think they believe that a child in the womb is not a child and if an abortion fails they are ok letting the baby die. That’s wicked and vile, but consistent with their view of “fetuses.”

        But since the overturning of Roe vs Wade there have been more abortions than before because of the pill. I don’t rejoice in that. Trump supports that. Acting like overturning Roe v Wade is such a great thing seems to just be a Republican talking point because it isn’t stopping abortion or even slowing it.

        What if the Democrats were fine with killing a baby after it has left the birth canal? Trump says it’s fine to kill it 15 weeks after conception. Respectfully, I would like to see you state your opposition to Trump on this issue. I see no biblical reason to defend him.

        I thought of another analogy. If you had two rapists, one who raped children and one who raped adults and the one who raped adults said, “Look at how vile that child rapist is.” Wouldn’t you still condemn the adult rapist? Why not do the same here? It’s not hard to just say, “Trump wickedly supports killing children and Biden wickedly supports killing children.” Then you can write your post about why the Democrats have a position that is much more vile on its face (though in practice Trump would truly be fine with killing all the same babies).

        Those are just my thoughts on this. I recognize this is your page, but as a bystander I want to see you standing for the truth and it seems that by giving Trump the nod here you’re letting your partisan side overtake your stance for Biblical truth.

        • Hi Bro Thompson,

          I’ll answer one paragraph at a time.
          Paragraph 1: True.
          Paragraph 2: I don’t think Trump supports the pill. He made a short statement that he supported the Supreme Court Decision, which I haven’t read, so I can’t comment very well. I don’t know what the decision was, whether it was making the pill a state decision too. That isn’t supporting abortion. You know I’m against the abortion pill. I’m actually against all aborticides, which includes most birth control.
          Paragraph 3: Trump doesn’t think it is fine to kill a baby 15 weeks after conception. He thinks that’s what more might approve and he’s trying to go as low as he can without losing elections, which will mean worse decisions on abortion. You want to be accurate on these points. It’s more a strategy than a belief. He’s stated he’s against all abortion except for three exceptions: rape, incest, and life of mother. I don’t agree with that position either.
          Paragraph 4: I don’t support abortion or anyone’s support of it, but I also believe there are positions that are better than others.
          Paragraph 5: I don’t think giving Trump a hard or harder time means you are standing for the truth.

          • Thank you for the response. I respect your position and will take into consideration the additional information you gave.

            I heard Trump’s remarks during the debate and it seemed clear that he was not against the abortion pill so I looked up his comment.

            Here is what I found. Maybe that’s just to get votes, but it seems like a clear statement to me.

            “The Supreme Court just approved the abortion pill and I agree with the decision to have done that,” he said. “And I will not block it.”

            I’ll be done on this here, but I’ll read your response if you give one.

          • Bro DT,

            I skimmed the Supreme Court Decision. Concurring opinions were written by Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas. Both of those men are anti-abortion, especially the latter, the most conservative justice. When someone says the Supreme Court approved the abortion pill, it means that they have not standing to reject the abortion pill. It was already legal with the FDA, another branch of government, so it is a separation of powers issue. Those bringing it to the Supreme Court were trying to get the Supreme Court to make it illegal. Conservatives are for the separation of powers. That is the support of the pill. I believe states will have to make the abortion pill illegal in each state. Trump said he approved of their decision in a very short, cliffs notes version. For Trump to challenge the abortion pill as a president would require something to establish its illegality. I’m sure that is not Constitutional right now, because it is a state matter due to the Dobbs decision that conservatives celebrate.

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