The Audacity of Death

The title of the article says it all. Daniel Allott— in an article from the American Spectator , now reproduced on the Wall Street Journal’s opinion page—highlights Barack Obama’s position on abortion by interviewing someone Obama would have rather seen dead:

According to Barack Obama, Gianna Jessen shouldn’t exist.

Miss Jessen is an exquisite example of what antiabortion advocates call a “survivor.” Well into her third trimester of pregnancy, Gianna’s biological mother was injected with a saline solution intended to induce a chemical abortion at a Los Angeles County abortion center. Eighteen hours later, and precious minutes before the abortionist’s arrival, Gianna emerged. Premature and with severe injuries that resulted in cerebral palsy. But alive.

Had the abortionist been present at her birth, Gianna would have been killed, perhaps by suffocation. As it was, a startled nurse called an ambulance, and Gianna was rushed to a nearby hospital, where, weighing just two pounds, she was placed in an incubator, then, months later, in foster care.

Gianna survived then, and thrives now, because, as she told me recently with a laugh, “I guess I don’t die easy.” Which is what the abortionist might have thought as he signed his victim’s birth certificate. Gianna’s medical records state that she was “born during saline abortion.”

As an Illinois state senator, Barack Obama twice opposed legislation to define as “persons” babies who survive late-term abortions. Babies like Gianna. Mr. Obama said in a speech on the Illinois Senate floor that he could not accept that babies wholly emerged from their mother’s wombs are “persons,” and thus deserving of equal protection under the Constitution’s 14th Amendment.

This may sound extreme for a man of moderation. And indeed, that is how the press and his campaign have sought to portray Obama: a man of calm post-partisanship and reflective balance who can deliver the change America needs. This no less true of his stance on economics than his stance on life questions. As Allott remarks, in Obama’s book The Audacity of Hope , the senator denounces extremism on the question of abortion as he does on any other issue.

But the facts from his legislative record and remarks made during his campaign tell exactly the opposite story. This is a man who declared that he doesn’t want his daughters “punished with a baby,” who promises that, “the first thing I’d do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act.” This Act, according to Allott, “would overturn hundreds of federal and state laws limiting abortion, including the federal ban on partial-birth abortion.” It all makes Allott ask, “If partial-birth abortion is, as Democratic icon Daniel Patrick Moynihan labeled it, ‘too close to infanticide,’ then what is killing fully-birthed babies?”

It is clear that Barack Obama is not another Democratic candidate who happens to support a woman’s right to choose. As Giana Jessen said, “I really hope the American people will have their eyes wide open and choose to be discerning . . . . He is extreme, extreme, extreme.”