Anti-Abortion Group Tries to Swiftboat Obama

By Bill Berkowitz, Media Transparency. Posted October 13, 2008.

Two weeks ago, BornAliveTruth.org, an anti-abortion group headed by Jill Stanek, launched a major attack on Sen. Barack Obama with a very personal and heart-wrenching television advertisement aimed at the voters in the toss-up states of New Mexico and Ohio. The ad, which according to Stanek cost the organization $338,000 to run -- in addition to what it is paying its public relations firm, CRC Public Relations -- was titled "The Gianna ad," and features Gianna Jesson, who is identified as an "Abortion Survivor."

"My name is Gianna Jesson, born 31 years ago after a failed abortion," Jesson states in the ad. "But if Barack Obama had his way, I wouldn't be here. Four times Barack Obama voted to oppose a law to protect babies left to die after failed abortions. Senator Obama, please support Born Alive Infant Protection. I'm living proof these babies have a right to live."

The ad, paid for by conservative philanthropist Raymond Ruddy, "singles out Obama's efforts while in the Illinois Senate to defeat the Born Alive Infants Protection Act," according to the Associated Press' Jim Kuhnhein. The AP story reported that "Obama and abortion rights forces in Illinois have said the bill would have undermined the landmark Supreme Court case on abortion, Roe v. Wade."

The BornAliveTruth spot has garnered a great deal of media attention for both Jesson and Stanek. In a late-September telephone interview, Stanek told Media Transparency that both she and Jesson have made a number of television and radio appearances. According to Stanek, in its first two weeks, the ad garnered more than 200,000 hits on YouTube and other websites that have made it available.

The Mokena, Illinois-based BornAliveTruth.org's "Mission Statement" declares that it is "a 527 political organization whose mission is to educate the public on the IL Born Alive Infants Protection Act and Barack Obama's record opposing this act."

According to a "Description Statement" on its website, the organization maintains that it is a "non-partisan issues advocacy organization dedicated to the proposition that any infant born alive is entitled to receive medical attention and be treated as a human being. We work to inform the public of the importance of this issue, legislative efforts to protect born alive infants, and how our elected officials have voted on born alive protections. BornAliveTruth.org is your best source for information about this issue and our activities."

In the "Know the Facts" section of Barackobama.com the Obama campaign provided a lengthy point-by-point rebuttal of BornAliveTruth.org's charges as well as charges by other anti-abortion groups (see "The Truth Behind False, Outrageous Lies about Obama and ''Born Alive.'')

In late August, FactCheck.org, a well-respected project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, which describes itself as "a nonpartisan, nonprofit, 'consumer advocate' for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics," looked closely at the issue after the National Right to Life Committee claimed that Obama had conducted "four-year effort to cover up his full role in killing legislation to protect born-alive survivors of abortions":

At issue is Obama's opposition to Illinois legislation in 2001, 2002 and 2003 that would have defined any aborted fetus that showed signs of life as a "born alive infant" entitled to legal protection, even if doctors believe it could not survive.

Obama opposed the 2001 and 2002 "born alive" bills as backdoor attacks on a woman's legal right to abortion, but he says he would have been "fully in support" of a similar federal bill that President Bush had signed in 2002, because it contained protections for Roe v. Wade.

We find that, as the NRLC said in a recent statement, Obama voted in committee against the 2003 state bill that was nearly identical to the federal act he says he would have supported. Both contained identical clauses saying that nothing in the bills could be construed to affect legal rights of an unborn fetus, according to an undisputed summary written immediately after the committee's 2003 mark-up session.

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Bill Berkowitz is a freelance writer covering right-wing groups and movements.

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