My Letter to Bart Stupak
Hello sir.
I want to show my conservative Tea Party appreciation to you for taking such a significant stand by sharing what Illinois Senator Obama said in his debate against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act in Illinois. During the campaign he claimed he just argued there is already a law on the books, this is not so. The following is from the actual transcript at pages 85 and 86 of the discussion on March 30, 2001 in the Illinois Senate:
"SENATOR OBAMA:
Well, it turned out -- that during the testimony a number of members who are typically in favor of a woman's right to choose an abortion were actually sympathetic to some of the concerns that your -- you raised and that were raised by witnesses in the testimony.
"And there was some suggestion that we might be able to craft something that might meet constitutional muster with respect to caring for fetuses or children who were delivered in this fashion. Unfortunately, this bill goes a little bit further, and so I just want to suggest, not that I think it'll make too much difference with respect to how we vote, that this is probably not going to survive constitutional scrutiny. Number one, whenever we define a previable fetus as a person that is protected by the equal protection clause or the other elements in the Constitution, what we're really saying is, in fact, that they are persons that are entitled to the kinds of protections that would be provided to -- a child, a nine-month-old -- child that was delivered to term. That determination then, essentially, if it was accepted by a court, would forbid abortions to take place. I mean, it -- it would essentially bar abortions, because the equal protection clause does not allow somebody to kill a child, and if this is a child, then this would be an antiabortion statute. For that purpose, I think it would probably be found unconstitutional. The Second reason that it would probably be found unconstitutional is that this essentially says that a doctor is required to provide treatment to a previable child, or fetus, however you want to describe it. Viability is the line that has been drawn by the Supreme Court to determine whether or not an abortion can or cannot take place. And if we're placing a burden on the doctor that says you have to keep alive even a previable child as long as possible and give them as much medical attention as -- as is necessary to try to keep that child alive, then we're probably crossing the line in terms of constitutionality.
"Now, as I said before, this probably won't make any difference. I recall the last time we had a debate about abortion, we passed a bill out of here. I suggested to Members of the Judiciary Committee that it was unconstitutional and it would be struck down by the Seventh Circuit. It was. I recognize this is a passionate issue, and so I
-- I won't, as I said, belabor the point. I think it's important to recognize though that this is an area where potentially we might have had compromised and -- arrived at a bill that dealt with the narrow concerns about how a -- a previable fetus or child was treated by a hospital. We decided not to do that. We're going much further than that in this bill. As a consequence, I think that we will probably end up in court once again, as we often do, on this issue. And as a consequence, I'll be voting Present."
Original available from http://www.ilga.gov/senate/transcripts/strans92/ST033001.pdf, the pdf is protected so I had to type this in.
I urge you to distribute amongst all pro-life democrats this statement of President Obama's, made in argument against adding language to a bill to protect babies whose birth is induced by a mother trying to abort, and the abortion is botched.
You are doing a great service to our country in voting no on this healthcare bill and I hope you will always do what's right based on the people, as we really need our representatives to represent us.
Thank you and/or your staffer for taking time to read this,
Toddy Littman
