Rick Santorum Has Also Accused Obama Of Infanticide

Gingrich and Santorum revive an attack from 2004.

Republican Presidential candidates last night spared over the issue of contraception. Following CNN’s presentation of a user question on the topic, and subsequent boos from the audience, Newt Gingrich chimed in with a bit making the rounds today, accusing Obama of infanticide.

The issue stems from votes Obama cast as a member of the Illinois legislature in 2001 and 2002 in opposition to bills that would have defined any aborted fetus that showed signs of life as a “born alive infant.” The bills would have extended legal protection to the fetuses, even if doctors thought it would not be able to survive.

Obama has said he opposed the bills because he saw them as a backdoor attack on a woman’s right to choose. Obama, however, did support a comparable federal bill signed into law by President Bush in 2002, arguing that — unlike the state bill — it would have no practical effect. (In the votes, he lined up with abortion rights groups.) Obama opposed a similar state bill in 2003 for the same reasons.

Gingrich isn’t the only candidate who has attacked the President on the issue. In a February 2008 edition of Rick Santorum’s weekly column in the Philadelphia Inquirer, “The Elephant in the Room,” the former Pennsylvania Senator attacked the President on the front as well.

Let’s be clear about what Obama did, once in 2003 and twice before that. He effectively voted for infanticide. He voted to allow doctors to deny medically appropriate treatment or, worse yet, actively kill a completely delivered living baby. Infanticide - I wonder if he’ll add this to the list of changes in his next victory speech and if the crowd will roar: “Yes, we can.”