Obama Responds to BornAliveTruth.org Attack

Barack Obama is airing a new ad in New Mexico and Ohio that defends his abortion rights record and says Republican rival John McCain backs a party platform that would deny abortions to victims of rape and incest.

The ad is in response to an independent ad campaign, financed by an anti-abortion philanthropist, that singles out Obama's efforts in the Illinois Senate to defeat the Born Alive Infants Protection Act:



As an Illinois state senator, Obama opposed three legislative efforts in 2001, 2002 and 2003 to give legal protections to any aborted fetus that showed signs of life. The 2003 measure was virtually identical to a bill President Bush signed into law in 2002 that unanimously passed the U.S. Senate.

Obama and other opponents of the Illinois bill have noted the state already had a law to protect aborted fetuses born alive and considered able to survive. Moreover, they said the proposed legislation would have undermined the landmark Supreme Court case on abortion, Roe v. Wade, in ways the federal law would not. Among those opposed to the state effort was the Illinois State Medical Society, which argued that the bill would interfere with the doctor-patient relationship and expand civil liability for doctors.