No Runny Eggs

In an interview  this week with “Relevant,” a Christian magazine, Obama said prohibitions on late-term abortions must contain “a strict, well defined exception for the health of the mother.”

Obama then added: “Now, I don’t think that ‘mental distress’ qualifies as the health of the mother. I think it has to be a serious physical issue that arises in pregnancy, where there are real, significant problems to the mother carrying that child to term.”

Wow! Barack Obama is now running limping to the center even on abortion rights!

Except he’s not.

The Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) is a bill (Senate 1173 and House 1964) that Barack Obama has said he would immediately sign if he was President. At a speech to  the Planned Parenthood Action Fund Obama said:

“The first thing I’d do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act,” Obama said in his July speech to abortion advocates worried about the increase of pro-life legislation at the state level.

The specific language of the bill that Obama was addressing is:

(b) Prohibition of Interference- A government may not–

(1) deny or interfere with a woman’s right to choose–
(A) to bear a child;
(B) to terminate a pregnancy prior to viability; or
(C) to terminate a pregnancy after viability where termination is necessary to protect the life or health of the woman; or

(emphasis mine)

Looking at the language and listening to Obama, it seems like he is using a reasonable interpretation of what “health” is, except his definition of “health” is not what the Supreme Court has found in prior decisions. According to: The Supreme Court on Abortion: A Survey
by Mark Tushnet, from Abortion, Medicine, and the Law, Third Edition, 1986, pp. 162

“The final stage of pregnancy under Roe v. Wade occurs after the fetus becomes viable. After viability, the state could regulate or prohibit abortions unless they were “necessary, in appropriate medical judgement”, to preserve the life or health of the woman. This standard must be read, however, in light of the Court’s decision the same day in Doe v. Bolton, that clinical judgement “may be exercised in light of all factors — physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman’s age — relevant to the well-being of the patient

(again, emphasis mine)

Obama is Co-Sponser  of the Senate version of FOCA, the bill that if unchanged and left to the Supreme Court, will likely allow partial birth abortions for a wide variety of reasons including claims of mental health impacts. Yet Obama claims mental health shouldn’t be a reason. That seems to leave me with only two conclusions about Obama’s interview comments:

1. This is another example of Obama backing off of an earlier commitment

or

2. Barack knows full well the implications of the Supreme Court’s previous decisions and his comments to a Christian magazine were nothing but deceitful pandering.

You decide.

A new poll is out showing that Ralph Nader is still polling about 6% nationally and Bob Barr is polling about 3%.

I wrote after he announced his candidacy, that I believed Nader would have an impact on the 2008 race.   Folks then and now continue to pooh pooh that thinking.   They naysayers kept saying that Nader’s vote would look more like his 2004 performance, about .4% of the total vote, rather than his 2000 total which was closer to 3%.

This latest poll gives me more reason to believe that Nader will have something that looks more like his 2000 performance, perhaps better.   The experts on the poll even now suggest that Nader will likely see his polling at about 3% as the election occurs.

I still believe that Nader could well be the spoiler in this election.

First, take a look at the first chart that I had in my original article.   Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania are states where Nader’s % of the vote in 2000 were enough to change possible slim winning margins to losses.   They are also states where current polling suggests that when asked about a Obama/McCain race, McCain to be in either a winning position or within a couple of points.   It’s hard to imagine an Obama victory if each of those 3 states are lost.

Second, I believe the Nader effect may not have seen its peak yet.   Over the past couple of weeks Obama has been making attempts to move to the center.   Obama has flipflopped on gun rights and FISA throwing his furthest left supporters into tizzies.   As Obama continues to attempt moves to convince middle America that he’s “just like them,” I would expect the Left’s margins to do a little peeling and end up in Nader’s court.   I’m not suggesting that Nader will ever be a serious contender.   All he has to do pick up fractions of, or maybe 1% additional in a couple of states and that could spell the difference in what is likely to be a close electoral race.

Yea, Bob Barr is still there and some may argue that he could impact McCain in the same way that Nader impacts Obama.   I really don’t expect that to happen.   My reasoning is that McCain is pretty much McCain.   the Right (far, near or inbetween) already know where McCain stands.   McCain started left of center (at least that’s the perspective of nearly all on the Right who didn’t initially support McCain or maybe Huckabee) so I just don’t see his moves any more annoying than what folks on the Right believe him to already be.

The Nader factor will be one to watch. I can’t imagine the newest poll is helping the Obama people sleep any better at night.