Obama's Botched Response On Abortion

Not only did Sen. Barack Obama misstate his position on late-term abortions in his appearance at last night's Civil Forum sponsored by Saddleback Church, his claim that the number of abortions in the U.S. has failed to drop despite having a president for the past eight years who opposes abortion is factually inaccurate. Here's what Obama said:

And so for me, the goal right now should be — and this is where I think we can find common ground — and by the way, I’ve now inserted this into the Democratic Party platform — is ‘How do we reduce the number of abortions?’ Because the fact is that although we’ve had a president who is opposed to abortions the last eight years, abortions have not gone down.

Last January, a Washington Post story by Rob Stein reported that the number of abortions in the United States had reached their lowest level in decades. "The number of abortions performed in the United States dropped to 1.2 million in 2005 -- the lowest level since 1976, according to a new report," Stein wrote. I'm not crediting Bush with the drop in abortions, but clearly Obama's claim that the number of abortions has not dropped during his presidency is patently false as is his claim that he has supported limitations on late-term abortions. As chairman of a key committee in the Illinois Senate, he voted against a bill with neutral wording meant to protect babies born alive as a result of a late-term abortion.