And It Gets Bigger

For a long time, abortion opponents have been asking, "If we can kill children in the womb, how long until the line is extended allowing us to kill children outside the womb?"

That question has mostly been blown off, tagged a "slippery slope" argument and dismissed. But it's happening. There are eye witnesses, brave enough to stand against politicians and hospital administrators and the media and tell their stories. One of the most well known of these witnesses is nurse Jill Stanek, who discovered that babies were being born alive, tossed in with the dirty laundry, and left to die. Her story is incrediby moving, as she tells how she held one such baby for 45 minutes until he died. She was later fired by the hospital for her outspokenness.

When it became clear that this was indeed happening, there was a lot of state and federal legislation drafted to protect born children. Obama voted against this legislation three times in Illinois and once in the US Senate. You can see documentation for these votes here. He voted against bills that would forbid a hospital from withholding care (including basic feeding) from a child who was born and living.

Now, I don't happen to think there's that much difference between a baby inside the uterus or outside it, but have we stopped even pretending that we care about children at all? I mean, how can it endanger the mother's health to treat the baby once it's born?

This is no longer a debate about abortion. These are not babies inside the womb, dependent on their mothers. These are babies who are outside, detatched from the mothers, and need feeding, bathing, and maybe some TLC in the NICU. My son was born early, nearly died right then and needed that kind of care. I just don't see myself voting for anyone who thinks it would have been okay just to leave him to die.

The slope is slipperier than you think...