Obama, Dred Scott, "personhood" and newborns

Lisa Graas is a former lobbyist for Kentucky Right to Life and the former co-chair of their PAC. Also trained at the national level, she has a keen grasp of the constitutional arguments surrounding the abortion and euthanasia issues. Concerned that Obama's position on infanticide is not getting enough coverage and that very few people realize the legal implications of his position, she addresses this concern in this piece.

Read the whole thing here. Some highlights:

...it’s clear that had the Dred Scott decision been allowed to stand, our world would be a far different place right now and there would be no black candidate serving in elected office anywhere in this nation, let alone running for president. Indeed, Senator Barack Obama, who claims it was the Civil Rights movement of the sixties that is responsible for his being conceived, may never have been born. How ironic, then, that Mr. Obama is such a staunch supporter of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that did the same thing to children in the womb that Dred Scott did to people of African descent – stripped them of “personhood” status under the law.

***

As noted, in the Dred Scott case, blacks were classified as non-persons. Roe v. Wade classified pre-born children as non-persons. In the slavery era, we were told that slaves were the “property” of the slave owner. Now, we are told that the unborn child is the “property” of the mother. The “choice” argument was used to defend slave owners as strongly in the slave era as it is used now in the abortion era. Abolitionists were told they should not “impose their morality” on slave owners. It was even said that it would be cruel to free the slaves because they were deemed to be unable to make it in the world without the “benevolent” care of the slave masters. This is reminiscent of the argument that children shouldn’t be born to poor women.

***

Fast forward to the current century. Constitutional scholar Barack Obama, a serious candidate for president of the United States, now seeks to strip “personhood” status from an entirely new class of people – those who have survived an abortion. Mind you, Obama has arguments on his website defending his actions on the Born Alive Infant Protection Act. Unfortunately, those arguments don’t align with the facts. Barack Obama can say what he will about his actions in the Illinois legislature but the bottom line is that if he had his way, doctors performing abortions would not be required to provide medical care to infants that are born alive after an abortion. Not even Hillary Clinton and Barbara Boxer opposed the Born Alive law at the federal level.

Definitely worth the read.