Kerry’s partial-birth tap dance

During the second presidential debate in St. Louis, Sen. John Kerry was asked by Sarah Degenhart:

“Senator Kerry, suppose you are speaking with a voter who believed abortion is murder, and the voter asked for reassurance that his or her tax dollars would not go to support abortion, what would you say to that person?”

KERRY: “I would say to that person exactly what I will say to you right now.

“First of all, I cannot tell you how deeply I respect the belief about life and when it begins. I’m a Catholic, raised a Catholic. I was an altar boy. Religion has been a huge part of my life. It helped lead me through a war, leads me today.

“But I can’t take what is an article of faith for me and legislate it for someone who doesn’t share that article of faith, whether they be agnostic, atheist, Jew, Protestant, whatever. I can’t do that.”

Does Sen. Kerry believe it is wrong for a Christian U.S. senator to apply any of the morality of his faith to any of his votes or sponsored legislation?

If he believes this is wrong, what does this say about the morality of his faith?

What would Elijah and the other prophets have said and done if any Israeli king had said:

“First of all, I cannot tell you enough how deeply I respect the belief about life and when it begins. I’m a Jew, raised a Jew. This religion has been a huge part of my life.

“But as a king, I can’t take an article of faith for me and legislate it for someone who doesn’t share that article of faith. …

“Therefore, I cannot in good conscience stop the worshippers of Moloch from offering their children as human sacrifices to that god. For after all, it is their children, not ours.

“Human sacrifice has been a part of history for centuries. And while God sent an angel to order Father Abraham not to sacrifice his son, Isaac, the Molochite’s report no such divine intervention. And we must take the greatest care to provide tolerance.”

Kerry also said: “But as president, I have to represent all people in the nation. And I have to make that judgment.”

He went on to say:

“I’m against the partial-birth abortion, but you’ve got to have an exception for the life of the mother and the health of the mother under the strictest test of bodily injury to the mother.”

Question: Has Sen. Kerry ever introduced legislation to outlaw partial birth abortion except when this operation can be shown to be essential for the life or health of the mother? Have all – or any – reported medical cases of partial birth abortion been reported as necessary to save either the life or health of the mother?

In response to Sen. Kerry’s statement, President Bush replied:

“Well, it’s pretty simple when they say: Are you for a ban on partial birth abortion? Yes or no?

“And he was given a chance to vote, and he voted no. And that’s just the way it is. That’s a vote. It came right up. It’s clear for everybody to see. And as I said: You can run but you can’t hide the reality.”

Kerry has stated that he believes that a human life begins at the instant of conception. Yet he has voted against a law to prohibit the semi-infanticide of partial-birth abortion.

He has also said he opposes same-sex marriage – while at the same time he has voted against the Defense of Marriage Act and didn’t even show up to vote for the federal Marriage Amendment – which would stop same-sex marriage. He and John Edwards were the only two who did not show up to vote on the federal Marriage Amendment (which failed 50-48).

Why does Sen. Kerry thus continue to vote against what he tells us is his conscience?

On Fox News on Jan. 25, 2004, Kerry said: “I’m against partial-birth abortion, as are most people.”

But Kerry voted against the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act. He voted no despite its being endorsed by the American Medical Association, whose executive vice president, P. John Seward, M.D., noted in a letter to Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania:

“The bill would allow a legitimate exception where the life of the mother was endangered, thereby preserving the physician’s judgment to take any medically necessary steps to save the life of the mother.”

Why, therefore, did Kerry in this presidential debate say, “You’ve got to have an exception for the life of the mother”?

Then, there are statements of Dr. Martin Haskell, the head of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers.

Dr. Haskell told American Medical News that “80 percent of his late (term) abortions were purely elective.” And in 1997, he told the New York Times that this procedure (partial-birth abortion) “is used thousands of times annually and that in the vast majority of cases, the procedure is performed on a healthy mother with a healthy fetus that is 20 weeks or more along.”

Washington’s Weekly Standard, in an Oct. 11 article by Douglas Johnson of the National Right to Life, notes that Dr. Haskell of Ohio has three abortion clinics.

Write Johnson: “Brenda Pratt Shafer, a nurse who worked briefly at one of Haskell’s clinics, witnessed close up the partial-birth abortion of a baby boy who she said was at 26 and a half weeks.

“‘I stood at the doctor’s side and watched him perform a partial-birth abortion on a woman who was six months pregnant,’ Shafer related. ‘The baby’s heartbeat was clearly visible on the ultrasound screen. The doctor delivered the baby’s body and arms, everything but his little head. The baby’s body was moving. His little fingers were clasping together. He was kicking his feet.

“‘The doctor took a pair of scissors and inserted them into the back of the baby’s head, and the baby’s arms jerked out in a flinch, a startle reaction, like a baby does when he thinks that he might fall. Then the doctor opened the scissors up. Then he stuck the high-powered suction tube into the hole and sucked the baby’s brains out. Now the baby was completely limp. I never went back to the clinic. But I am still haunted by the face of that little boy. It was the most perfect, angelic face I have ever seen.'”

On June 30, 2004, the Kerry Campaign accepted a check for $2,000 from Dr. Haskell.