"The first thing I’d do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice Act. That’s the first thing I’d do."
-- Barack Obama
The Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) would eliminate every restriction on abortion nationwide.
FOCA will do away with state laws on parental involvement, on partial birth abortion, and on all other protections.
FOCA will compel taxpayer funding of abortions.
FOCA will force faith-based hospitals and healthcare facilities to perform abortions.
Barack Obama believes this legislation will "end the culture wars." To him, "ending the culture wars" means eradicating every state and federal law on abortion — laws that the majority of Americans support.
For more information on what you can do see:
http://www.fightfoca.com/
Although Obama's love affair with partial-birth abortion has served to chip away at his finely polished veneer, his opposition to the Born Alive Infants Protection Act (BAIPA) has revealed to the world that backward extremism permeates his marrow.
BAIPA very simply requires that when a baby survives an attempted abortion - when she is "born alive" - further attempts to kill her must immediately cease, and steps must be taken to ensure her health and well-being.
Index of documents relating to Barack Obama and the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act
Documents Relating to Illinois State Senate Born-Alive Infants Protection Act
A1 Text of SB 1082, the Illinois BAIPA, as it was originally introduced in 2003 (without the neutrality clause)
A2 Senate Amendment No. 1 (the neutrality clause copied from the federal law), which Obama and his colleagues added to SB 1082 at the March 13, 2003 meeting
A3 Senate Committee Action Report in HTML (web browser) format
Senate Committee Action Report in JPG (photo) format
Senate Committee Action Report in PDF (Adobe document) format
A4 Comparison between the final federal BAIPA and the final 2003 Illinois BAIPA.
A5 Illinois Senate Republican Staff Analysis, Senate Bill No. 1082. The first portion of this analysis was written before the March 12-13, 2003 meeting of the committee that Senator Obama chaired. The committee's actions on March 13, amending the bill to exactly track the federal born-alive law, and then defeating the bill, are reported on the bottom half of the second page.
A6 Associated Press dispatch dated March 13, 2003, reporting on the 6-4 committee vote that killed the bill
A7 June 30, 2008 "Factcheck" issued by the Obama campaign
A8 June 30, 2008 "Alert" from NARAL
A9. "Obama answers the 'baby killer' brigade." On August 14, 2008, Chicago Tribune writer Eric Zorn posted on his Tribune blog a submission from the Obama campaign, including a table that purported to show differences between the federal and the 2003 state Born-Alive Infants Protection bills. NRLC responded with two comments on the Obama submission -- read the entire exchange here. (Note: The Obama submission contained numerous inaccuracies, and on August 19 the Obama campaign released an entirely different comparison table -- part of document No. 12A, below -- that blatantly contradicts the August 14 table on the most important points.)
A11. The Exact Bill That Chairman Obama Killed At the Meeting He Chaired on March 13, 2003. State Senator Obama, presiding over a meeting of the Health and Human Services Committee, led all of the committee's Democrats in voting against this final version of the state Born-Alive Infants Protection bill, and it was defeated, 6-4. It's only three sentences long, and it is it a virtual clone of the federal bill/law enacted the previous year (see document A4 above).
A12. From Barack Obama Campaign. A six-page memo released by the Obama campaign to CBN News and other media sources on August 19, 2008. Amidst a great deal of diversionary and irrelevant information, it contains both serious distortions and illuminating characterizations regarding the actual matters under dispute.
A13. Obama's defenders now (August 19, 2008) insist that the Illinois Born-Alive Infants Protection Act was not needed because, they claim, Illinois already had a 1975 law "that requires doctors to provide medical care in the very rare case that babies are born alive during abortions." They fail to mention that the law covered only situations where an abortionist decided before the abortion that there was "a reasonable likelihood of sustained survival of the fetus outside the womb." Humans are often born alive a month or more before they reach the point where such "sustained survival" -- that is, long-term survival -- is possible or likely (which is often called the point of "viability"). Moreover, this already-weak law was further weakened by a consent decree issued by a federal court in 1993, which among other things permanently prohibits state officials from enforcing the law's definitions of "born alive," "live born," and "live birth." To read or download the consent decree, click here.
A14 Side-by-side comparison of the two versions of the Illinois Born-Alive Infants Protection Act (BAIPA) that Obama voted against while a state senator -- the 2001-2002 version (which contained the "immediate protection clause" but no "neutrality clause), and the amended 2003 version (which contained the "neutrality clause" but no "immediate protection clause"). The amended 2003 version was virtually identical to the federal BAIPA, enacted in 2002, that Obama later claimed he would have supported if he had been in Congress at that time. PDF version
A15 NRL Release: "Obama Cover-up Revealed on Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Bill" (August 11, 2008). This is the release that accompanied the release of the documents, recently uncovered by NRLC, that proved that Obama had killed a version of the Illinois BAIPA that was virtually the same as the federal law he claimed to support.
A16 NRL White Paper: "Obama Cover-up on Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Continues to Unravel After Sen. Obama Says NRLC is 'Lying'" (August 18, 2008). This is a complete update on the controversy up to August 18, detailing Obama's response to the NRLC charges ("folks are lying . . . they know that they're wrong") and other developments up to August 18.
A17 NRL White Paper: "Barack Obama's Actions and Shifting Claims on the Protection of Born-Alive Aborted Infants -- and What They Tell Us About His Thinking on Abortion" (August 28, 2008).
To view or download PDF version, click here.
To view or download the Wordperfect version, click here.
Documents relating to federal Born-Alive Infants Protection Act
B1 Timeline of important events in the history of the federal Born-Alive Infants Protection Act
B2 Original federal 2000 Born-Alive Infants Protection Act (H.R. 4292)
B3 The official report of the Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, explaining the intent of the federal Born-Alive Infants Protection Act (H.R. 2175), and explaining why such legislation was necessary (August 2, 2001)
B4 NARAL press release, July 20, 2000, expressing strong opposition to the original federal Born-Alive Infants Protection Act (H.R. 4292)
B5 Final federal Born-Alive Infants Protection Act as enacted
B7 NRLC archive of documents on the federal Born-Alive Infants Protection Act
B8 Read the transcript of the first hearing of the Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives on the original federal Born-Alive Infants Protection Act (BAIPA) on July 20, 2000, including the testimony of the nurse eyewitnesses. Subsequently, the bill was approved by the committee 22-1, and by the full House of Representatives 380-15.