Needless to say, abortion is a heated topic of debate, one that opponents rarely find much common ground on which to stand. There is, however, one exception to that rule:
The Born-Alive Infant Protection Act.

This bill, known as H.R. 2175 (you can read it in full here) passed unanimously in both the US House and Senate in 2002. It received support on both sides of the aisle, from Ted Kennedy to Rick Santorum.
The bill stated that any child born alive – either through natural birth or a failed abortion – was entitled to the same rights as any American as guaranteed by the Constitution. Meaning that any child born alive, even in the process of an abortion, was entitled to any measure necessary to save and prolong their life.
Or, in other words, if a baby were born during a failed abortion, that child couldn’t just be left to die.

A version of this bill also arose on the state level, including the Illinois State Senate, where Obama was serving at the time. Aside from his duties as a state senator, he was also the chairperson of the Health & Human Services Committee, through which the bill had to pass. Considering the unanimous support this bill received elsewhere, it’s surprising that its only opponent was Barack Obama, who sought to block the bill on all fronts.

Before continuing, it’s important to clarify the exact record regarding Obama’s opposition to the bill in the Illinois State Senate. So after the jump, we’ll examine his record, his explanation as to why he opposed the bill, as well as the discrepancies between that argument and the actual records from the Illinois State Senate. On top of that, we’ll explore how we’re left to wonder about what Obama really does believe. Finally, I’ll provide a video from CNN as a decent synopsis of this topic. Click “More” for more of this vitally important topic every voter should be aware of.

I like to refer to myself as an ‘Old School Feminist’, meaning I subscribe to the feminism of the 1940s. Historically, feminists of this era and the era of the Suffragettes held to the belief that women and men should both have the same opportunities in life – that anything a man could do, a woman could do just as well, if given the same opportunity to thrive.
That may sound like the modern 1960s-era feminism to you, but it differs in one major way: it didn’t attempt to raise women up by beating men down. Rather than just tipping the scales of inequality and malice in the opposite direction, Old School Feminism sought to teach men the error of their ways, encourage them to acknowledge and respect women, and ask for their help to change the system to recognize the equal rights of everyone, regardless of gender, race, or creed. It wasn’t “Dog eat dog”, it wasn’t “me first, you second”, it was about real tolerance.

Read more after the jump!