Kill him! He doesn't look quite like us.

(www.RemnantNewspaper.com) As a physician I'm very concerned about  an important issue that this country really must address.

A mother arrived at Christ Hospital in Oaklawn, Illinois to deliver her baby with Down’s Syndrome. As this is not a loving world the baby was being brought in for the purpose of “termination.” Instead of being delivered “dead and limp”, however, as both her doctor and parents had hoped, the baby was born alive with a heart rate of 170 beats per minute.

The doctor told the delivery nurse to wrap the baby in a blanket and take him out of the room. After about an hour, the infant—delivered 23-24 weeks premature—began to gasp for air.  The nurse couldn’t stand watching him work to stay alive so she decided to place him in a utility closet to die in the dark alongside a mop and a garbage can. At some point, another nurse named Jill Stanek decided that she would hold the child until he died in her arms three hours later.  At least he didn’t die alone.

The United States boasts a human rights policy that deplores the murder of innocent babies around the world. Unfortunately, it seems that many Democratic politicians support a new form of infanticide right here at home. It’s a procedure whereby a woman who wants to abort her child is induced into premature delivery. It can be performed either in the second or third trimester. Though many times the infant dies during delivery, up to twenty percent survive the delivery and therefore are born alive.  Thus, a strange sort of moral dilemma occurs: “What to do with a living infant we just tried to kill?”

This is exactly what was going on with the Down’s infant who was delivered at Christ Hospital. The infant was  not “limp and dead” but very much alive, moving, breathing, and responding.

This gruesome situation led to a proposed Federal and Illinois state law called the “Born Alive Infant Protection Act” (BAIPA). Senator Obama has always opposed this law, however, being one of 15 Senators to vote against the Federal law and voting “present” on two other occasions. Why? First, Senator Obama believes that saving the infant would be unconstitutional.  Let’s repeat that: Senator Obama believes that saving the infant would be unconstitutional!

One of the very few politicians to actually speak against BAIPA, Obama stated on the Illinois Senate floor on March 30, 2001:

I just want to suggest ... that this is probably not going to survive constitutional scrutiny.

Number one, whenever we define a previable fetus as a person that is protected by the equal protection clause or the other elements in the Constitution, what we're really saying is, in fact, that they are persons that are entitled to the kinds of protections that would be provided to a child, a 9-month-old child that was delivered to term. …

I mean, it – it would essentially bar abortions, because the equal protection clause does not allow somebody to kill a child, and if this is a child, then this would be an anti-abortion statute. For that purpose, I think it would probably be found unconstitutional.

Americans should be very concerned when politicians determine that a baby delivered prematurely is not human or “viable.” I can think of a couple of political regimes in Europe during the 1930s and ’40 that engaged in that sort of thing. We now call the leaders of those regimes “mass murderers”. The definition of viability is “the ability to survive.”  In essence, any child born before 28-30 weeks gestation would be considered “non viable.”  If these are not “viable” human beings, then what would Senator Obama call the thousands of 23-24 week preemie infants on ventilator support in NICUs around the country? Is Obama seriously suggesting that government fiat is to determine who lives and dies in America?

After an initial vote where Obama voted against BAIPA, a hearing was held where health care professionals presented documentation on this practice, including pictures, to the Senate committee. Senator Obama was present and thanked the professionals for their commitment to their profession.

Senator Obama spoke further on this issue after he voted against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act a second time on March 5, 2002. He felt the reason why the infant should be left to die was that allowing him/her to live would “create one more burden on women, and I can’t support that.” Again, let me repeat that: The reason infants should be left to die is that allowing them to live would “create one more burden on women, and I can’t support that.”

Senator Obama’s spokesman told the Chicago Tribune in August 2004 that another reason the Senator voted against BAIPA was that it “would have taken away from doctors their professional judgment when a fetus is viable.”

The Senator was then informed that when physicians see any living, breathing patient they always assume viability, whether it be an adult who sustained a severe head injury or an infant born prematurely.  To this Obama responded (two months later, October 2004 Chicago Tribune) that he now opposed BAIPA because “physicians are already required to use life saving measures when fetuses are born alive after abortions.”  

Unfortunately, this does not reflect the reality of what happens. Abortion survivors become problematic for the delivering physician who along with the parents and the institution has a vested interest in seeing that the child dies since there well could be legal ramifications if the child lives. If there were any longstanding neurological/pulmonary issues that would need to be addressed secondary to the early delivery, for example, the physician and hospital would be liable for those costs. That's not part of the bargain. 

While speaking at Benedictine college two weeks later, Obama was asked by a student if the graphic testimony given before the committee caused him to think again about not supporting BAIPA.  Obama said there was no documentation that hospitals were actually doing what was alleged in the testimony presented to him in committee.

Yet no talk of pressing charges against the testifying professionals for intentionally offering false testimony before a Senate committee?  That would be a federal offense!

In the end, it’s horrifying to think that a child in America can survive the first 23 weeks of pregnancy, survive an attempted termination of his life, and still be greeted by a cruel world that leaves him to die in a utility closet. It’s equally horrifying that this country would elect a candidate who supports such a violent act as a solution to Down's Syndrome or an unplanned pregnancy. How long before he or someone else in our government determines that 70-year-olds in nursing homes or even 30-year-old disabled persons are also “no longer viable” and need to be “killed” for the common good!

You may think this will never happen but as we’ve already taken the giant leap of justifying the euthanizing of the most innocent of innocents, our own children, euthanizing all manner of individuals in society is just one step away.

No matter what your position is on the economy, health care or foreign/domestic policy, it is only through God’s grace that this nation has any chance of ever getting back on track. Someone who supports such violence against little ones will likely not be open to God’s grace on the myriad challenges this country will undoubtedly face. We will be, as they say, “flying solo without God”. 

As a physician, I never imagined we would justify passive euthanasia of a living, breathing infant here in America. And it’s not just the senator—we physicians have also lost our moral compass.  Our whole country has, and it’s time to get it back.

As the infant in the utility closet took his last breath he was held by the only person who cared—it wasn’t his mother, his father, his treating physician, but a stranger who happened to be working that day.  One has to ask: My God, is this America?

The purpose of my letter is to hopefully encourage Americans to research this before casting their vote, if, that is, they feel that legal infanticide in America is an important issue. This is not going to go away. Senator Obama has stated he would sign into law the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) if he becomes president. This would allow abortions to be performed during any trimester, at any point, and by any means. It also would eliminate any requirement of parental consent before minors can terminate their pregnancies. It would make abortion an inalienable right and the law of the land.

I repeat: My God, is this America?