After the national chapter of NARAL endorsed Sen. Obama, Hillary supporters threw a fit.  (Hat tip: PatHMV.) Thousands of people have said that they will no longer donate to the organisation.  Her supporters have gone on the offensive:

In Washington, two dozen women members of Congress who support Clinton held a quickly organized press conference to tout her abortion-rights record Wednesday night. Ellen Malcolm, founder of the abortion-rights women’s fundraising group EMILY’s List, sharply rebuked NARAL for its endorsement. Two former members of Congress (and Clinton supporters) — Geraldine Ferraro and Pat Schroeder — jabbed at NARAL for endorsing before the general election. “Looks like some higher ups at NARAL are trying to get jobs in the new administration … nothing else makes sense to us,” they wrote in a joint letter.

Internecine warfare! 

Moving right along… there is a very good reason why NARAL endorsed Obama and not Clinton: he voted against the Induced Infant Liability Act, which is similar to the Born Alive Infant Protection Act.  It would require physicians to give medical treatment to babies who have been born, instead of letting them die on the operating table.  Now, dear readers, if you read that and thought, “Why on earth would anyone vote against such a bill?”, then you’re normal.  Pro-choice abortion advocates dislike such bills, supposedly because the babies won’t live anyway, but, more likely, because it changes a woman’s right to an abortion (dead baby) into a woman’s right to not be pregnant. 

While NARAL has said that it does not oppose the BAIPA, it surely must acknowledge that such an Act undermines the pro-choice movement.  Americans intuitively understand that the being on the operating table is not an armadillo, “products of conception,” or anything but a human baby that ought to be cared for.  We don’t like throwing babies in Dumpsters, simply because the parents would prefer to continue prom-going to caring for the infant; neither do we like leaving babies on an operating table to die, simply because their mothers want them dead.  If we question whether or not it’s okay for physicians to do that which we don’t allow others to do, we begin to question the entire abortion ethic. 

Just a thought.