Wednesday, August 20, 2008

OK, I Give Up

Several of my regular commenters (you know who you are!) have taken me to task for my defense of Barack Obama's claim that determining when life begins is above his pay grade. Here's some more information I just found from a nurse named Jill Stanek.
"(The hospital where she worked) - and we now know other hospitals and clinics around the country - are involved in an abortion procedure called 'induced labor abortion,'" says Stanek in the video, entitled "Kill and Destroy". In this type of abortion, she says, the abortionist inserts a medication into the birth canal of the mother and induces premature labor.

"My experience was that they [the babies] survive as short as a few minutes, to once, almost as long as an eight hour shift.

"To be clear these were living babies who were left out to die. And they were issued both birth and death certificates according to Illinois state law."

Stanek relates the story of how one night she saw a nurse bringing a baby to the soiled utility room to die, because the parents of the child did not want to hold it. The other nurse also did not have the time to hold the child. "When she told me what she was doing I couldn't bear the thought of this suffering child dying alone," says Stanek. "And so I cradled and rocked him for the forty-five minutes that he lived."

Stanek recounts how, besides testifying before the federal House, she also testified before an Illinois State Senate Committee, a Committee on which Barack Obama sat.

"Barack Obama," she says, "was unmoved, and actually opposed the Born Alive Infant Protection Act."

"This one guy, Barack Obama," she says, "thought that infanticide was acceptable and voted to protect it. Some people said that Barack Obama was uninformed or may not have fully understood the implications of this bill. But he voted against it three times. That's calculated."
If he really believed that such decisions were above his pay grade, then he is clearly a creature of utter moral relativism. I still don't discount that possibility, but the implications of this story on just how far he goes in the direction of nihilism are stunning.

8 comments:

Dean said...

KT, I think what that shows is that "when life begins" is completely immaterial to Obama... it just doesn't matter.

Don't give up! You make some great points its just that I feel Obama's statement was not so much from nihilism or moral relativism but rather from a wholy disengenuous motive to provide him the cover needed for the fact that he just doesn't care when life starts. His voting record screams, "I don't care!"

ligneus said...

What he cared about was getting the votes of the lefties and pro-abortionists. [Same thing actually] All else is of no account to him. I've said before, I didn't think the Dhimmis could come up with a worse candidate than John Kerry [who served in Vietnam] but I underestimated them. This is truly an awful person, he has no business running for Prez and the American people will suss him out well before Nov. The Dem delegates I think have realised too late they made a big mistake, sure they can throw him under the bus but the ramifications re the black vote are even worse than giving him the nomination and letting the people do the dirty deed.

Dean said...

KT, I was thinking perhaps that hospital might be due for a name change. Charming...

Also, nihilism and disengenuousness... probably not mutually exclusive concepts as applied here to M.T. Suit.

Anonymous said...

I think Obama must have meant for his answer to sound humble. And his followers likely heard it that way. But his reluctance to consider the question in any way betrays his rigid belief structure. And his votes on the Born Alive Act show a lack of capacity for empathy, IMO. He's skating by on charisma that is quickly tarnishing.

Anonymous said...

I think you were right the first time, and that we ignore the sincerity of his "pay grade" response at our own peril.

To assume he was merely pandering puts him in the mainstream. All politicians do that to one degree or another. Let's take John McCain. I'm a McCain supporter, but when the polls were against offshore drilling, McCain was against it. Now that the polls have turned, McCain has turned. The geological and technological facts on the ground are identical, pre- and post, but the public has rebelled against the price spike. This is not a criticism, it's merely an observation.

Obama has done some of that too, but on this issue I think it's different. His supporters are always going on about how "nuanced" he is, and nuance is a necessary corollary of axiomatic nihilism.

Obama is a dangerous guy. Not because he doesn't believe in what he says, but because he does.

K T Cat said...

Wow, those are some thoughtful comments.

Dean, by "I give up" I meant trying to give this guy the benefit of any doubt. Like the secular apostate, I believe that he's being honest and that makes him an even worse person. He has no real morals at all, only odd feelings that things should be this way or that, but without sufficient force to back those feelings up with actions.

He voted against the born aliuve infants act because that act was the realization of a concrete rule about life. That's more than he can handle.

Like the secular apostate said, that's scary.

Anonymous said...

"He voted against the born alive infants act because that act was the realization of a concrete rule about life. That's more than he can handle."

Many believe that laws were already on the books that achieved this and merely needed to be enforced. There was a sense that this type bill was in fact a stalking horse that might be read very broadly and used against all abortions. Hillary Clinton suggested he was not sufficiently Pro choice because he voted 'present' instead of no. The NY Sun had a fairly balanced view I thought:

http://www.nysun.com/national/obama-facing-attacks-from-all-sides-over-abortion/84059/

I did think his answer was too coy in the interview and he does seem to have done some factual tap dancing on the issue of legislative wording.

Brian

K T Cat said...

Brian, I'm sure you're right. You know how often laws protecting babies who survive abortions are twisted into total reconsiderations of Roe v. Wade.

Please.

I still don't think his answer about abortion being above his pay grade was dishonest. I just think he has no concrete moral code at all.