Over the weekend, Obama made some murmurs of vague respect towards the pro-life position:

And on the issue of abortion that is always a tragic and painful issue. And I think that in the past we have made some mistakes, I think, people who are pro-choice, in not focusing on the fact that there is a real moral element to this. And I think that is how it is experienced by women. It is never an easy decision and I don’t think women make those decisions casually.
I think it is always tragic, and we should prevent it as much as possible by making sure that young people are engaging in responsible behavior and that we are encouraging the kinds of good decisions that prevent unwanted pregnancies and that we are encouraging adoption as an alternative. But I think that at the bottom line is that in the end I think women, in consultation with their pastors, and their doctors, and their family, are in a better position to make these decisions than some bureaucrat in Washington.
That’s my view. Again, I respect people who may disagree, but I certainly don’t think it makes me less Christian. Okay.

Still, rhetoric is rhetoric. His record is something else.

The federal version of the Born Alive Infant Protection Act passed the U.S. Senate unanimously (yup, no objections from Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry or Barbara Boxer) and passed the House of Representatives by a wide margin. This piece of legislation was so modest, so common sense, so lacking in moral controversy that NARAL was neutral on it. Bush signed it into law in 2002.

Guess who refused to let a state version of the law* get a hearing in the Illinois State Senate?

Barack Obama.

Guess who voted against it three times (UPDATE: voted present once, voted no once, and did not permit it out of committee on the third try; see below) in the state legislature?

Barack Obama.

As you’ve probably heard, he’s getting flak from the pro-choicers because he voted “present” on two partial-birth abortion bills. Somehow, I suspect that vote will fail to thrill pro-lifers, either.

As a U.S. Senator, Obama voted in favor of funding of overseas pro-abortion organizations; against the Child Custody Protection Act (which prohibited the transportation of a minor across state lines to obtain an abortion, if this abridges the right of her parents to be involved in her abortion decision under their home-state law, with certain exceptions), against the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act (a revised version of the bill). He’s had a 100 percent rating from NARAL in both the U.S. Senate and state legislature.

If a lawmaker wants to refute the notion that he’s an extremist on this issue, that he is torn between these opposing views or that he sees nuance and gray areas on this most controversial of topics, it would help if he could point to a single vote in which he didn’t toe the line for one side of this issue.

UPDATE: Campaign Spot reader Richard writes in:

This issue came up in RedState a few days ago [referencing the same Human Events article you reference] and, intrigued by the poster there [who said that Obama had voted against the BAIPA at a time he wasn’t even in the Senate] I went back and pulled both bills. They are both pretty short but, contrary to your statement in your column, they do not have “identical” language or, in fact, bear much of any resemblance to each other. To be accurate, what he voted against was the Induced Birth Infant Liability Act in the Illinois legislature [and I think he only voted against it (or maybe even voted “present”) in committee]. The IBILA would have entitled the parents of a child who was the product of an induced labor abortion to sue the doctors, hospital, etc. for damages. “If a child is born alive after an induced labor abortion or any other abortion, a parent of the child or the public guardian of the county in which the child was born may maintain an action on the child’s behalf for damages.” The scope of the obligation to keep the child alive was pretty fuzzy and it wasn’t clear [at least to me] whether the doctor/hospital, etc. had to act intentionally to refuse to provide care or whether negligence was enough. The BAIPA, as I read it, just says that a born-alive infant is a “person” under the law and doesn’t create any private right of action like the IBILA did. And I don’t think that the Illinois bill is a “state version” of the BAIPA. They’re both against infanticide, obviously, but the Illinois law would have encouraged lawsuits, I think. Here are links to them both:http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/legisnet92/sbgroups/sb/920SB1661LV.htmlhttp://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=107_cong_publi… Obama’s position on the IBILA may have been controversial or even wrong or immoral, but it’s not the same as voting against the BAIPA (which passed unanimously).

Here’s the confusion: “A package of Born Alive bills was introduced three times during Obama’s tenure. The cornerstone bill was the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, which defined legal personhood. This definition was identical to the federal BAIPA…” At that site, run by Jill Stanek (a nurse, pro-life activist and witness who testified in favor of the legislation), links to Obama’s actions and votes on the cornerstone bill, the Born Alive Infant Protection Act. As noted earlier, I interpreted his three opposing actions as voting against it three times, when in fact he voted present once, voted no once, and opposed it in the third effort by preventing it from coming to a vote.