Obama Ad: McCain Camp Sleazy, Extreme On Abortion

WASHINGTON — Democrat Barack Obama is airing a new ad in New Mexico and Ohio that defends his abortion rights record and says Republican rival John McCain backs a party platform that would deny abortions to victims of rape and incest.

Obama's ad answers an independent ad campaign, financed by an anti-abortion philanthropist, that singles out Obama's efforts in the Illinois Senate to defeat the Born Alive Infants Protection Act.

"Now votes taken out of context, accusing Obama of letting infants die? It's a despicable lie," Obama's ad states.

As an Illinois state senator, Obama opposed three legislative efforts in 2001, 2002 and 2003 to give legal protections to any aborted fetus that showed signs of life. The 2003 measure was virtually identical to a bill President Bush signed into law in 2002 that unanimously passed the U.S. Senate.

Obama and other opponents of the Illinois bill have noted the state already had a law to protect aborted fetuses born alive and considered able to survive. Moreover, they said the proposed legislation would have undermined the landmark Supreme Court case on abortion, Roe v. Wade, in ways the federal law would not. Among those opposed to the state effort was the Illinois State Medical Society, which argued that the bill would interfere with the doctor-patient relationship and expand civil liability for doctors.

The independent ad is being aired by BornAliveTruth.org, specifically targeting Albuquerque, N.M., and Cleveland markets. The Obama ad is appearing in the same markets.

The BornAliveTruth ad, financed by prominent Massachusetts anti-abortion figure Raymond Ruddy, features Gianna Jessen, a 31-year-old motivational speaker from Nashville, Tenn., who adopted as a child after a failed abortion. "Sen. Obama, please support born alive infant protections. I'm living proof these babies have a right to live."

Obama's ad links McCain to the independent ad, though the McCain campaign did not pay for or air it.

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"McCain, he's running on a platform to ban abortion, even in cases of rape and incest," Obama's ad says. "Sleazy ads, anti-choice, that's John McCain."

The Republican platform approved at the party's national convention earlier this month asserts the GOP's opposition to abortion, including in cases of rape, incest or to protect the life of the mother.

McCain has supported such exemptions in the past, but did not try to alter the party's stance at the convention.

Jill Stanek, a nurse and anti-abortion activist who organized BornAliveTruth, said Obama still needs to explain his votes. "These babies have the same rights as the rest of us," she said in response to Obama's ad.

___

On the Net:

BornAliveTruth: http://www.bornalivetruth.org

Obama: http://www.barackobama.com

Comments

[jhw22]

Is anyone else getting tired of people saying that they haven't heard Obama address things or never answer questions? I sure the heck am. I have been listening to Obama for 20 months and there isn't a single thing I haven't heard him address. I may not always agree with him, but I don't think there is a subject from the economy to Iraq to Ayres to this abortion bill that I haven't heard him answer.

I truly wish people would stop relying on talking points and soundbytes and dig a little to find the answers. As the X-Files say, "The truth is out there". Too many people just want to be spoon fed the information. And that is who is voting. And that is what scares me.

Jennifer

[Rumba]

Jennifer...it is all part of the republicans re writing the truth.

[jhw22]

The sad thing is, I am hearing it mostly from Independents and Dems who were for Hillary. The Repubs mis-quote him but others just haven't listened. Ugh!!

Jennifer

[booksnmore4you]

Here's video of the Obama ad:

http://digg.com/politics/Obama_defnds_against_the_LIES_of_BornAliveTruth_org

[alecsbook]

http://myrealitytelevision.com/2008/09/mccain-versus-obama-on-health-care/

[HateLieCheatKillRepubWay]

"“Love the fetus
Hate the child

the GOP mantra”"
Palin/McCain/Bush 08

[glesslib]

That's been my point since R v Wade. The Republican Party is all about tiny little blond haired babies being born. If you are not a little white baby, not so worried. Either way, once you are here you are stricly on your own. Don't be looking for the government to be doing it all for you, little baby. Get out there and pull yourself up by your bootstraps, even if you are only 3 months old.

[Fenianheart]

And if you make it to adulthood we'll send you to die for our profit!

[eden4barack08]

I'd say "Hate' em both, but the fetus brings votes"

[HateLieCheatKillRepubWay]

Jill Stanek, blah, blah, blah, like we could care less and believe anything you hypocrites have to say.

[Ant]

"Jill Stanek, a nurse and anti-abortion activist who organized BornAliveTruth, said Obama still needs to explain his votes. "These babies have the same rights as the rest of us," she said in response to Obama's ad."

What's wrong with this woman? Illinois law already protected aborted fetuses that showed signs of life so the legislation was unnecessary and some parts of it were cumbersome.. The bill was a back door attempt to define a fetus as a person.

[iride]

Question: What religious zealots terrorized the most buildings in this country?

Right to Lifers.

And you thought it was Al Queda.

[bipolar2]

** So-called pro-life is really pro-mass-death **

• Pro-life ranters are *not* pro-life.

They are pro-BIRTH. A dogma once called pro-natalism. It's an androcentric, completely misogynistic, demand that no impediment whatsoever on *births* be permitted by law.

No chemical contraception: the pill, spermacides. No barriers to conception: IUD, condoms. No abortions, not even in cases of rape, incest. Pro-natalism is the sexual theory of Ms. Palin, myriad other fundies, Mormons, and the RC church.

What happens to mother and child after birth is irrelevant since the "laws" of nature will then cull weak from strong. For example, Palin cut Alaska’s state assistance for children with disabilities. That’s perfectly consistent with pro-natalist sexual theory of letting “Nature take her course.”

• The issue is quality of life, not frequency of birth.

As Marvin Harris made very clear in “Cannibals and Kings”: reproduction will always overtake food production, leading to vast overpopulation, de-facto slavery, degraded environments, and marginal living conditions. Technological intensification of food production makes for only short-term solutions.

But, technological innovation in birth control should already make ancient fears of Doomsday disappear. Why has insane population growth continued, especially in America the wasteful, which added 100 million people in 37 years.

• Obviously pro-birth not pro-life.

In fact this sick ideology is pro-mass-death: creating disease, poverty, and ignorance worldwide by fostering overpopulation, damning safe non-reproductive sex, and blocking medical research.

[ChewyToy22]

You're so right. It's pro-birth but they don't care what happens to these children after they're born. It's not their responsibility. Therefore they should not be the ones deciding if a woman wants to have a baby or not.

There must be regulation, though, like in everything else.

[Htowner]

Chew Toy,

Take a step back from your politics for a moment and realize that the ProLifers are the ones who have set up, operate and help most of the unwed mothers that need and ask for assistance and, ProLifers are the people that run most of the adoption groups.
Don't drink the Koolaide....

[Rumba]

How come pro lifers never march if other nation's children are being bombed?
How come pro lifers will sacrifice an unborn child if the mother herself would die at birth, but will not sacrifice an ova and sperm in a test tube to save the lives of millions?

[proudloudlib]

Hi, there! Can anyone give me a link to back up the Palin cuts to state assistance for children with disabilities, or cuts to Special Olympics. Not because I don't believe it, but I need something from an actual source that my sister will believe. This might be the one thing that would change her vote. Reliable, checkable, unbiased sources...Thanks!

[Naithom]

OK here's what I found. They asked for an increase of $50,000 and she only gave them $25,000. http://www.ktuu.com/Global/story.asp?S=90078166)

[lemonyashes]

I ask this of people "How many people would there be if women had only the children they wanted to have and/or planned for? Their anwer every time "There would be a lot less people in the world."

[loax]

People are not even paying atten to McCain ads. Evryone so far has been a lie!

[londongal]

Why is abortion always pushed as a wedge issue during presidential elections? I'm sick of it.

No woman in her right mind would purposely seek abortion as a birth control method. For goodness sake, it is a matter of life and death. Personally, I believe I'd choose life, but I will NOT, repeat, I will NOT condemn another woman for making a different choice.

Leave politics out of such deeply personal family decisions.

[lisakaz2]

They are personal and varied. I have kniown several women who spoke to me about their abortions. Let me recount the circumstances:

1. Married woman who borrowed money from her mother or her husband's (I forget which) because she could barely afford raising the children she already had.

2. Single woman who while under 20 was subject of murky "affair" that most people would label manipulative and incestuous and therefore illegal.

3. Single woman who while a young teen was raped by her music tutor. Her parents were involved as well as a doctor who said she'd suffer physical problems because she was too young to give birth.

I don't see how anyone can fault the outcome given the problematic circumstances in all 3 cases. And that's what this choice is about . I wish these "social conservatives" would mind their own business, since they wouldn't really have support to offer if any of these women gave birth and further problems (economic or health or other) arose.

[HateLieCheatKillRepubWay]

Even the married woman who determines that her husband is a dog and doesn't want to have his off-spring, even though she get got pregnant, has the right to make that decision for her, her future and the future of the unborn, who might be negatively affected.

For every one Gianna Jessen; how many of these children end up wards of the state, mistreated and raped etc. in foster care and abused and possibly killed?

[momforbetterworld]

Yep, pro-CHOICE is NOT pro-abortion. Simply having a choice is to make sound decisions. It's been so distorted by the religious hyprocrite.

[HateLieCheatKillRepubWay]

I say to the hypocrites; take your morality and hands off MY uterus.

[LisainNYC]

Interestingly enough, this is the way most so-called conservatives feel.

Dan Quail, when asked what he would do if his daughter were pregnant, said he would counsel her to keep the child but would support her decision. (His wife then tried to shut him up.)

Sarah Palin talks about the "decision" her daughter made, meaning that her daughter MADE a decision, it was not a done deal. "Pro-Lifers" really DO believe in choice, but only for themselves, not for everyone else. They confuse having a personal opinion with making laws that impose that view on everyone else.

[Belleweathered]

Yes, the exceptions for fundies & right to lifers are only them & their families

[glesslib]

Why do they push it? Because as a nominal Catholic, on the rolls of a parish, I get mail every four years reminding me to vote prolife, not from the parish, but from fellow parishioners. They cull the names from the parish directory and send little letters telling me all about how I should choose the next president based on this sole issue. And we all know how that translates....vote Republican.

It's also the reason that the Republilcans are never really going to overturn R v Wade. Why would they? They'd lose it as a campaign issue and all the money and volunteers that go with it.
They use it cynically for other political ends. And the prolife movement has been taking the bait for thirty years, mostly because the people who have taken over the movement are black-hearted, cynical republicans who have a separate agenda that has nothing to do with abortion.

[kate9]

The lies and reckless behaviors of the McCain campaign make clear that his administration will intensify the ugliness, secrecy, political, and economic disasters of the last eight years. We need to shut down more of the same.

[eirrac]

As mentioned in the article, at the time these votes came up there was ALREADY A STATE LAW ON THE BOOKS THAT PROTECTED THE LIVES OF ABORTED BABIES BORN ALIVE AND THAT WERE NOT EXPECTED TO SURVIVE. So there was never any real threat to the lives of these babies in Illinois anyway. They WERE given medical care, despite the lies and the "dubious" women who are in the ads and making these outrageous statements.These bills were ones that were definitely aimed at doctors and Roe vs. Wade. The medical community said these bills definitely needed to be reworded and that they needed clarification. (Sometimes, unfortunately, a later abortion was medically necessary, and doctors needed to be protected from being accused of "murder "by pro-life advocates. ) After the necessary changes were made to the bill, it did pass. But that had nothing really to do with letting babies that survived abortion die, since they were never allowed to in the first place. This issue has been so distorted by the Republicans that it's disgusting. By the time the final Illinois bill was approved, Obama was in Congress in Washington, and wasn't able to vote, but he has said, repeatedly, that he would have voted for it along with the Republicans. FOR PETE'S SAKE, READ THIS ARTICLE AGAIN. The ad's a lie. Period.

[11Xray]

If I disagreed with John McCain about everything else, this is enough to cause me to vote for him. A guy that supports killing children in the womb isn't getting my vote.

[littlepuffycloud]

Maybe McOpportunist should just start handing out coat hangers at his 'town hall meetings', because as long as women get pregnant, there will be terminated pregnancies.

[dpiyjrtmfr]

I am a student of history and I have been stunned to see how far back this goes. People act as if abortions all started after Roe v Wade. It goes back to ancient times.

[mydogshakespeare]

He could even give them out "free" if someone is willing to make a $25 "campaign contribution," like he did with his tire gauges.

[GUESSWHOITSME]

So a man that supports killing children in Iraq gets your vote.....hypocrite....

[11Xray]

A man ending this war with a victory gets my vote. You know what happens every time this nation slinks out of an unfinished war? We embolden our enemies, and more people are slaughtered.

It started with Korea, then vietnam, then somalia. It has to stop.

[londongal]

Xray, Obama does not support "killing children in the womb". OMG, what a distortion.

Why do people like you ONLY focus on the womb? What about children OUTSIDE of the womb?

I said before and I'll say again, no woman chooses to "kill" a child in her womb. It's not that simple. It's an issue that should NOT be politicized, but should be a private family matter.

I consider myself a democrat and I CHOOSE LIFE. YES, LIFE. But I will NOT condemn another woman because she makes another choice. That's between her and her God.

What needs to be the focus here is NOT condemnation, but how to HELP women who find themselves pregnant and have difficulty with that.

Condemnation NEVER resolves the issue. Let's help young women in these situations make wise decisions.

Let us first remove the plank in our own eye before we attempt to move the speck in someone else's.

[11Xray]

He doesn't? He supports abortion, does he not?

[furpants]

11Xray,
I also don't believe abortion. But I don't claim to have the right to push my beliefs on other people. What right do I have to make such decisions. Do us all a favor and mind your own business.

[11Xray]

Mind my own business? So that's your answer for something that you don't believe in? Just ignore it? You make me want to throw up in my mouth. While we ignore it millions of babies are being slaughtered each year. Great.

[iride]

I guess you think women performing their own abortions or have a person that isn't qualified to perform the procedure is better? Overturning Roe v Wade would work just as well as the war on poverty and the war on drugs.

[11Xray]

No, I don't. I think that women should not get pregnant if they don't want a child. If they do, they should have the baby and let someone adopt it. What ever happened to responsibility?

[eden4barack08]

Did you see how they titled Obama's response ad as " Obama's attack on Gianna"??
He doesn't even mention her at all! Can't get anymore sleazy!

[bascombe]

seems to be a big problem at #uffp0.
too many lying headlines.

[eden4barack08]

No, not Huffpo, the group that made the false attack ad against Obama. You see the title on Youtube or on their link.

[BluePride]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59mOukUZNUo

Everybody RUN...

HomeComing Queen Palin's got a GUN!