This is a rush transcript from "Hannity & Colmes," August 20, 2008. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
SEAN HANNITY, CO-HOST: Senator Obama's state Senate vote on abortion continues to draw criticism from all sides. And now audiotapes have surfaced of the Illinois senator arguing against the bill that would have protected babies who survive a botched abortion.
Now listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, (D) ILLINOIS SENATOR: And that essentially adding an additional doctor, who then has to be called in an emergency situation to come in and make these assessments is really designed simply to burden the original decision of the woman and the decision to induce labor and perform an abortion.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Joining us now for reaction is former Huckabee national press secretary, Alice Stewart, and former Gephardt campaign manager, Steve Murphy, and RedState.com editor, Erick Erickson.
Erick, let me start with you. These words — this by adding the extra doctor, called into an emergency is really designed to burden the original decision of the woman.
Now we're talking about putting a doctor on the scene that medical care would be available to a baby who survived a botched abortion. So he does support infanticide.
Is that a fair assessment?
Video: Watch the panel discussion
ERICK ERICKSON, REDSTATE.COM EDITOR: I think it's a fair assessment. I mean it was very clear from his entire transcript if you read through it that he was really concerned that we should trust the abortionist who botched the abortion to take care of it.
HANNITY: And the Born Alive Baby Protection Act, Alice, that would have protected these children that these abortions where these kids are born, it's anticipated they die.
But, if they live, they be — in the end, they be offered no medical care because Barack Obama didn't want it there, right? It would hurt a woman's choice at that point even though the baby was viable on its own?
ALICE STEWART, FORMER HUCKABEE ADVISOR: Right. And I think what the problem we have here is it's a very complicated issue that Senator Obama is basically calling people who have held his feet to the fire on this issue - - he's called them liars.
And there's a problem there because it's an issue that a lot of the voters out there are not going to take the time to really look into this situation, as your show is, as you guys are and your producers.
They're not going to understand and they're just going to take Senator Obama's word that the folks that are criticizing him on this issue are liars. When, in fact, that he was very outspoken on not.
HANNITY: Yes.
STEWART: . supporting this issue. And he really needs to be held accountable.
HANNITY: And to Steve Murphy, he's just been caught lying. That tape shows that, in fact, everybody's characterization. Now we had Jill Stanek on the program last night. She is the nurse who testified before his Judiciary Committee in the Illinois state Senate.
And she told the story of a down syndrome born baby that she found in the soiled utility room of the hospital, rocked and cradled for 45 minutes and these babies would be left to die.
Now you're a liberal. Liberals are supposed to be compassionate and have a heart. Doesn't that disturb you?
STEVE MURPHY, FORMER GEPHARDT CAMPAIGN MANAGER: No, I'm a — I'm a real conservative.
HANNITY: Does that disturb you?
MURPHY: And it's — unlike you.
ALAN COLMES, CO-HOST: Hold on, hold on.
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: Does that baby deserve medical care, Steve?
COLMES: Go ahead, Steve. We only have a short segment.
MURPHY: Sean, Sean, listen to me. Listen to me here. We do have laws preventing late-term abortions.
COLMES: Yes. There are only.
MURPHY: . except in cases of a serious threat to the health of the mother in this country.
COLMES: I want to know why.
MURPHY: And by the way, not providing care to a living baby would, in fact, be a crime under the law already.
COLMES: Yes, I'd like to know, Steve.
ERICKSON: Not in Illinois.
COLMES: . while Jill Stanek held that baby for 45 minutes and didn't get that baby medical attention. I'd be curious to know about that.
But Alice, I guess it's OK to call Barack Obama a liar. You got on your high horse about calling a doctor a liar. The fact of the matter is that Barack Obama's position is that you can trust a doctor. You don't need a state-controlled doctor coming in.
He can trust doctors in — who are already on the scene and there already was a law in place. This is superfluous verbiage. Extra legislation. I thought conservatives like less government.
STEWART: Well, let me — first off, Alan, I didn't call Senator Obama a liar. But the facts speak for themselves. You heard the words from his own mouth right there where he was speaking against this legislation..
COLMES: Yes.
STEWART: . whereas up until now he's saying that he's not been held accountable for this.
Now one of the things he said before was that he wanted to make sure that there were provisions in place to protect the Roe v. Wade. Those provisions were in place. In fact, a legislator asked him to make sure that those protections were in place and he was the only legislature in that time.
COLMES: Not in the Illinois state law, Alice. That's the whole point.
And Erick, there was extra legislation. There was a package deal. There was extra legislation in this Illinois law that would have redefined what a baby is, what life is, what being born is. And it was different than the federal law.
ERICKSON: No, it wasn't.
COLMES: And there was already a law in place that said that in the unlikely case that an abortion would be — cause a live birth, a doctor should provide immediate medical care for any child born alive.
ERICKSON: Alan, that's not the case here.
COLMES: That was the text already in place.
ERICKSON: Here's the federal — here's the federal court decision that said that law was unconstitutional. That wasn't the law in Illinois. And, in fact, the law that Obama voted against, Senate bill 1662, among two others related, all it did was say that a child that was living outside the mother's womb, unconnected to the umbilical cord with a beating heart, was a living child.
That's it.
COLMES: I was quoting a 1975 law that was in place. I gave the exact wording on that.
ERICKSON: And the federal courts in 1984 said that law was unconstitutional.
COLMES: That was a standing law in Illinois at the time. We're going to have run.
ERICKSON: It is unconstitutional (INAUDIBLE) court system.
COLMES: . maybe we'll pick it up in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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