First, President Obama was an anti-colonialist; now, however, he is a “Fabian socialist” -- or so goes Glenn Beck's new argument. Tonight on his Fox News show, Beck claimed that Obama's philosophy is akin to that of Fabian socialists because as a state senator, Obama opposed certain bills that supporters called the “Born Alive Infants Protection Act.”
Beck suggested Obama supports infanticide and implied there was no difference between his supposed views on the matter and those of British advice columnist Virginia Ironside, who recently said that “any good mother” would kill their child if they were “deeply suffering” and nothing could be done.
Weaving a chilling tale of babies being left to die “intentionally, compassionately” in American hospitals, Beck stated:
BECK: But has anyone ever died in the closet of a hospital here in America and put intentionally, compassionately into that closet so you couldn't hear the child's screams as it died? Yes. Yes, here in America. A baby that didn't die from an abortion was left in a U.S. hospital in Illinois, left in a laundry room so no one would hear. There was a law voted on to prevent this thing from ever happening again. But guess who didn't vote for it? Guess who showed up only to vote “present”? Illinois state Senator Barack Obama. Why?
Oh, and the response to the U.K. hospital deaths is that the nurses have to sign a public pledge that they'll treat everyone with compassion and dignity. Yes, but I've heard compassion already today from someone.
Beck then aired a clip of Ironside supporting euthanasia for suffering children, and said:
BECK: Here's a mother saying it's compassionate to smother. What's the difference? It's what happens when you're under the influence of a Fabian socialist or a progressive model. Human life is devalued. Just as our dollar is being devalued and they are connected, because the only reason you would have to ration something like medical care is when there is a shortage of supply, of doctors, or of money.
Suddenly, those who have to decide who lives or dies -- they have to decide. You may have to decide. I'd feel better if we had to decide ourselves, but it's not. It's going to be in the hands of a government official -- a progressive or a Fabian socialist like it is over in England. It's a cold calculation based on the greater good for society.
Except that Obama doesn't support infanticide or eugenics. And those votes he cast as a state senator to defeat the Born Alive Infants Protection Act? As we repeatedly pointed out when conservative media seized on the votes to claim Obama's opposition to the bill amounted to support for infanticide, Obama and other opponents of the bill said it posed a threat to abortion rights and was unnecessary because, they said, Illinois law already prohibited the conduct supposedly addressed by the bill.
This allegation surfaced during the height of election season 2008, when a nurse named Jill Stanek, an anti-abortion activist, criticized then-Sen. Obama for the votes and claimed he "supports infanticide." In spearheading support for the Born Alive Infants Protection Act, Stanek alleged that fetuses born alive were “left to die without medical care” and that, at the hospital where she worked, “a newborn, with no one around to hold it, once was left to die in a soiled linen closet” [9/29/99, Chicago Sun-Times].
As we noted at the time, when tasked by the Illinois attorney general's office with investigating Stanek's allegations that fetuses born alive were abandoned without treatment, the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) reportedly said it was unable to substantiate the allegations but said that if they had proved true, the conduct alleged would have been a violation of then-existing Illinois law. Obama himself cited specific provisions of the Illinois Compiled Statutes in stating that the “born alive principle was already the law in Illinois.”
In an August 2004 email discussion with Stanek, Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn wrote that IDPH spokesman Tom Shafer told him “that the 1999 investigation reviewed logs, personnel files and medical records. It concluded, 'The allegation that infants were allowed to expire in a utility room could not be substantiated (and) all staff interviewed denied that any infant was ever left alone.' ”
Just yesterday, Beck tried to connect Obama to British environmentalist campaign 10:10 Global, which, in a short film (since pulled), shows a teacher blowing up two children who don't agree to reduce their carbon emissions. What will Beck think of next?