Would you trust your health care to this man?

The vast majority of Americans agree that once a baby is born she's a person. Even the Supreme Court agrees with that. So if we as a country agree that once a baby is outside of her mothers body, and breathing she's a person. In fact i could go so far as to say that anyone who advocated the right to choose to kill a born baby would be viewed by most Americans--excluding professional bio-ethicists -- as pretty monstrous.

Now that we've all agreed on that let's look at Senator Obama. In an earlier post--read them all it's worth your time--I pointed out that Senator Obama when an Illinois legislator had voted against a bill that would require that medical care be provided for babies who were born alive during the course of a botched abortion. We've all agreed that if the baby is born, it's no longer part of the mothers body remember, she's a person.

You might ask what Obama's reasoning was. He said that the law in question would tend to erode women's right to choose. While i find that reasoning entirely irrational, after all we're talking about a born baby here, it is the Senators position. But what the heck let's think about it for a second. The basis for abortion is that the unborn fetus--remember that fetus is just a term for a phase in the course of human life no different than say baby, teenager, or elderly--isn't a person. So how could a 8.5 month old baby who happens to survive an abortion not being allowed to die in the gutter hurt a woman's right to kill a fetus? So i guess i'll have to retract my statement. Senator Obama's position is entirely reasonable if you view a woman's right to kill her baby as the most important thing in the world. Abortionists aren't the cream of the medical profession--doctors become doctors to heal people not kill them--so there are reasonably large number of botched abortions. If the babies who manage to make it out alive were to be allowed to live and grow up then people might be able to see that there are no fundamental differences between a fetus and a baby. Sure the baby is more developed than a fetus but then a toddler is more developed than a baby and a kindergartner is more developed than a toddler. From the time they're conceived to the time they die people are constantly changing. There is no magic line based on scientific knowledge, other than conception, that divides a persons life into person and non-person phases.

How should we interpret this then? Well it means that either Senator Obama believes that born babies aren't people, a position i can't imagine him holding, or that he's willing to deny medical care to some classes of people if that would be detrimental to political causes he supports.

Since Obama is a Democrat he'll try and give the government control of your medical care. That's what Democrats do. But do you think that someone who will let babies die in order to avoid risking one of his other political positions is the sort of person you want to decide your health care plan?

So what's the obvious:

Senator Obama is willing to let babies die to protect a political position he holds dear. He can't be trusted to control health care since we have no way of knowing who else he will be willing to let die if they're politically inconvenient.

By the way i based this blog on a letter written to the National Catholic Register which made this point.