A couple days ago I posted on the post-Saddleback interview in which Obama accused the NRLC of lying about his abortion record. Well, it appears that team Obama is changing its story. The New York Sun reported yesterday:
Indeed, Mr. Obama appeared to misstate his position in the CBN interview on Saturday when he said the federal version he supported “was not the bill that was presented at the state level.”
His campaign yesterday acknowledged that he had voted against an identical bill in the state Senate, and a spokesman, Hari Sevugan, said the senator and other lawmakers had concerns that even as worded, the legislation could have undermined existing Illinois abortion law. Those concerns did not exist for the federal bill, because there is no federal abortion law.
In 2005, the campaign noted, a “Born Alive” bill passed the Illinois Legislature after another clause had been added that explicitly stated that the legislation would have no effect on existing state abortion laws.
Told of the campaign’s explanation, the legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee, Douglas Johnson, was dubious. “These are newly manufactured and highly implausible excuses,” he said. “There is no way that the bill would have had any effect on any method of abortion.” Mr. Johnson said the version Mr. Obama voted down clearly applied only to fetuses that emerged from the womb alive.
[HT: Jill Stanek]
P.S. For any who may be unaware, Ms. Stanek is a former nurse who spearheaded the push for the Born Alive Infact Protection Act in Illinois after witnessing a live infant discarded and left to die at the hospital where she worked. She has testified at the state and federal level about this issue. Ms. Stanek appeared at the White House ceremony in 2002 when President Bush signed the federal bill into law.