McCain/Obama church interview thing

[Whitey]

Like most Americans I was watching Phelps and that 41 year old chick swim last night so I missed CNN's dueling interviews thing with Obama and McCain, but I caught it this morning online. I think it's really good...cool format, and overall pretty entertaining for a political special.

http://www.cnn.com/POLITICS/

[McJuicy]

We believe in the seperation of church and state but not the seperation of faith and politics.

Does that even make sense?

[McJuicy]

woah obama just straight up said he did drugs

[McJuicy]

this whole thing is retarded

[Tuna Hematoma]

I have enjoyed Juicy's commentary.

[McJuicy]

Good answer on abortion for obama

[McJuicy]

The whole audience just must be religious fuckwits

[Whitey]

Originally Posted by Kyle McJuicy

Good answer on abortion for obama

What? That was probably his worst answer of the whole night. He was stuttering his way through the whole thing.

First he says that coming up with a point at which believes human rights should begin is "above his paygrade." So he doesn't answer the question.

Then he says that our goal should be to reduce the number of abortions in America, since the abortion rate hasn't declined under the pro-life Bush Administration. The only problem is that the abortion rate has been declining steadily ever since Reagan took office, and it has DECLINED EVERY SINGLE YEAR BUSH HAS BEEN IN THE WHITE HOUSE. So he's wrong.

Then he said he was against late term abortions, with an exception made for the health of the mother. And yet while an Illinois Senator he voted against a "Born Alive" bill that would have made a baby who survives abortion a viable human. In other words...if the doctor screws up the abortion and a baby exits the womb ALIVE, it would be against the law to KILL IT. Seems like a no-brainer, especially for a guy who is "against late term abortions." But Obama voted against the Born Alive bill because for some reason he believed it would undermine Illinois abortion laws. A nearly identical Born Alive bill was passed at the federal level UNANIMOUSLY. So he's not being forthright with his record on late term abortions.

Then he says that if someone believes that life begins at conception, then you can't really argue with that person. Because you're coming from two different places and arguing two different things. YES, THIS IS OBVIOUS. Everyone understands this, it's the very reason why the abortion debate is so partisan and messy.

So tell me...what was good, uhhhh, about the, uhhhh, answer?

[Skittlebrau]

What's it like to be the lone outspoken republican in a sea of democrats and other parties apathetic to your views, save for the occasional sport-argument?

[Whitey]

It's interesting.

[Andres]

that's not change we can believe in
*snickers*

[Aaron Haynes]

Originally Posted by Whitey

First he says that coming up with a point at which believes human rights should begin is "above his paygrade." So he doesn't answer the question.

I really don't get the hand-wringing over this. I thought it was a pretty clever way of saying he doesn't think he should be the one to say when human life begins. Republicans fall all over each other to accuse him of being arrogant and presumptuous, but when he doesn't presume he can dictate what constitutes a human being during pregnancy, he's refusing to answer tough questions.

Originally Posted by Obama

“… whether you’re looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity … is above my pay grade.”

You may not like it, but this basically is the crux of the abortion debate in the first place. He goes on to detail his desire to reduce abortions via a better healthcare system and better support services (and as part of a broader effort, providing better sex education, though he didn't mention that in this forum).

I don't believe that you don't have to precisely define when life begins to responsibly deal with the issue of abortion. There are some pretty clear safeguards in place for partial-birth abortions and immediate care requirements for "born alive" children. But it's part of a larger issue in my mind, one that necessarily encompasses child support services. It's irresponsible to demand hardline restrictions on abortion while simultaneously combating efforts to provide for abandoned or neglected children.

Originally Posted by Whitey

Then he says that our goal should be to reduce the number of abortions in America, since the abortion rate hasn't declined under the pro-life Bush Administration. The only problem is that the abortion rate has been declining steadily ever since Reagan took office, and it has DECLINED EVERY SINGLE YEAR BUSH HAS BEEN IN THE WHITE HOUSE. So he's wrong.

Yeah, he was wrong here. But it hasn't exactly been plummeting.

Then he said he was against late term abortions, with an exception made for the health of the mother. And yet while an Illinois Senator he voted against a "Born Alive" bill that would have made a baby who survives abortion a viable human. In other words...if the doctor screws up the abortion and a baby exits the womb ALIVE, it would be against the law to KILL IT. Seems like a no-brainer, especially for a guy who is "against late term abortions." But Obama voted against the Born Alive bill because for some reason he believed it would undermine Illinois abortion laws. A nearly identical Born Alive bill was passed at the federal level UNANIMOUSLY. So he's not being forthright with his record on late term abortions.

Wrong on several counts.
http://factcheck.barackobama.com/fac...ng_on_obam.php

There was an important distinction in the federal version of the bill that acknowledged a difference between a born baby and an in utero fetus (and without which, it could've potentially been used to overturn Roe v. Wade). Obama said he would've voted for the federal version of the Born Alive legislation.

But more importantly, Illinois state law already said that doctors must provide immediate medical care for any child born alive as a result of an abortion procedure. They couldn't even legally perform an abortion if there was a realistic chance of the fetus surviving outside the womb (with or without artificial support), unless they had someone on hand to ensure its survival.
http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs...72005100K6.htm

Then he says that if someone believes that life begins at conception, then you can't really argue with that person.

Uh, no. He said that if someone believes life begins at conception, then he can't argue with that person. That the two of them are going to fundamentally disagree on the issue of abortion. That kind of acknowledgement, of a candidate's position being untenable for a given voting block, made by the candidate, is actually one of the more refreshing things about Obama's campaign, I think.

[McJuicy]

I like how McCain never said how he adultered his past wife. Just the failure of it.

[Aaron Haynes]

I usually don't like to judge a political candidate based on their marital infidelity, but his particular story is pretty awful.

[Whitey]

I don't have time at the moment to respond...but the whole live birth thing has a stink to it. This will hurt Obama.

[Whitey]

Originally Posted by Aaron Haynes

Wrong on several counts.
http://factcheck.barackobama.com/fac...ng_on_obam.php

There was an important distinction in the federal version of the bill that acknowledged a difference between a born baby and an in utero fetus (and without which, it could've potentially been used to overturn Roe v. Wade). Obama said he would've voted for the federal version of the Born Alive legislation.

Here's the bill:

http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/full...D=3&Sessio n=

Here it is as introduced, the version Obama rejects because of Section C:

AN ACT concerning infants who are born alive.

2 Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois,
3 represented in the General Assembly:

4 Section 5. The Statute on Statutes is amended by adding
5 Section 1.36 as follows:

6 (5 ILCS 70/1.36 new)
7 Sec. 1.36. Born-alive infant.
8 (a) In determining the meaning of any statute or of any
9 rule, regulation, or interpretation of the various
10 administrative agencies of this State, the words "person",
11 "human being", "child", and "individual" include every infant
12 member of the species homo sapiens who is born alive at any
13 stage of development.
14 (b) As used in this Section, the term "born alive", with
15 respect to a member of the species homo sapiens, means the
16 complete expulsion or extraction from its mother of that
17 member, at any stage of development, who after that expulsion
18 or extraction breathes or has a beating heart, pulsation of
19 the umbilical cord, or definite movement of voluntary
20 muscles, regardless of whether the umbilical cord has been
21 cut and regardless of whether the expulsion or extraction
22 occurs as a result of natural or induced labor, cesarean
23 section, or induced abortion.
24 (c) A live child born as a result of an abortion shall
25 be fully recognized as a human person and accorded immediate
26 protection under the law.

But the Senate Health Committee (which Obama was chairperson) unanimously voted to amend the bill to replace section C with this:

1 AMENDMENT TO SENATE BILL 1082

2 AMENDMENT NO. . Amend Senate Bill 1082 on page 1, by
3 replacing lines 24 through 26 with the following:
4 "(c) Nothing in this Section shall be construed to
5 affirm, deny, expand, or contract any legal status or legal
6 right applicable to any member of the species homo sapiens at
7 any point prior to being born alive as defined in this
8 Section.".

This is the EXACT neutrality clause that was put in the federal bill, which passed by a vote of 98-0.

So...confusing.

[Aaron Haynes]

FactCheck.org finally got to this:
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2...fanticide.html

You're right, they did use the same neutrality clause and he voted against it in committee.

One of the key points still stands, though -- Illinois state law already had a statute for protecting "born alive" children. Obama believed that the bill could conceivably be used as a wedge to contradict existing state abortion laws (in fact, he suspected that may have been its intended purpose), even with the amendment. Presumably, that means he didn't believe that criminalizing "born alive" deaths was an urgent enough piece of legislation to vote for it with these concerns in mind.

Your post earlier states that if a doctor screwed up an abortion and the baby was born alive, the legislation would make it illegal to kill it. The phrase "kill it" seems to imply that the doctor would toss it in the dumpster or give it a lethal injection or something, but if the legislation were vague enough, doctors could be charged and convicted with infanticide if they were judged to have not provided sufficient care or not acted quickly enough. The question is, who would be the judge of that? What are the standards for neglect and how would they be interpreted and enforced? Abortion procedures might even require an independent observer of some kind to determine whether or not a fetus qualifies for the legal definition under the "born alive" legislation. What are his qualifications? Under what basis is he determining this, and is the doctor culpable for disagreeing with him? I'm not saying this is what would've happened under that bill, but that Obama believed it conceivable to have been used in that way.

Originally Posted by Obama

[A]dding a – an additional doctor who then has to be called in an emergency situation to come in and make these assessments is really designed simply to burden the original decision of the woman and the physician to induce labor and perform an abortion. … I think it’s important to understand that this issue ultimately is about abortion and not live births.

Except for the most hardline position on abortion (that life begins at conception, has full human rights, and is as defined a person as you or I, which I find ludicrous), no serious assessment of Obama's position can be considered to condone infanticide. If you're saying that many voters might not see it that way or that it will be hard for the Obama camp to explain, I'd be inclined to agree, but I think it's morally disingenuous for smart people like you or I to seriously claim that Obama is ambivalent about infanticide.

Finally, it's worth noting that a "born alive" bill did pass in 2005 with this clause:

"Nothing in this Section shall be construed to affect existing federal or State law regarding abortion."

Obama said that he would have voted for that bill (he was in the US Senate by that time).

You were right about the federal and state neutrality clauses being the same, though.