Jill Stanek (born 1956) is an American pro-life activist and nurse from Illinois best known for saying "live birth abortions" were being performed at Christ Hospital in the Chicago suburb of Oak Lawn and the premature infants were being left to die in a utility room. More recently, she has accused President Barack Obama of supporting infanticide while a member of the Illinois State Senate, referring to Obama's opposition to Born Alive Infants Protection legislation.
The Christian magazine World named Stanek one of the 30 most prominent pro-life leaders during the thirty years following Roe v. Wade. Since 2003, Stanek has been a regular columnist for WorldNetDaily. Stanek also has her own blog, at JillStanek.com.
Stanek testified twice before the Judiciary Constitution Subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives, and in several state legislatures. She is also a frequent speaker at state and local pro-life events.
Stanek ran for the Republican nomination for the Illinois House of Representatives in 2002, on a pro-life platform, but was defeated.
As of 2009, she lives in Mokena, Illinois.
Christ Hospital controversy
Stanek gained initial prominence in 1999 when she testified that, while she worked as a nurse at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois, infants that survived induced labor abortions were abandoned to die in a utility room. These allegations led to a formal investigation by the Illinois Department of Public Health, which stated that the hospital violated no state laws. Shortly thereafter, Advocate Health Care changed its policy on induced labor abortions, barring its use against fetuses with non-lethal developmental issues.
A Christ Hospital spokesman admitted "that between 10 percent and 20 percent of fetuses with genetic defects that are aborted survive for short periods outside the womb."
At the signing ceremony for the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, President George W. Bush named Stanek in his speech, publicly thanking her for being in attendance.
Criticism of Barack Obama
Stanek generated national news during the 2008 Presidential campaign when publicizing Barack Obama's four votes against Illinois' Born Alive Infants Protection Act while state senator as well as his state senate floor testimony. She posted a vote tally on her blog showing that, during a March 12, 2003, meeting of the Illinois State Senate's Health and Human Services Committee, Committee Chairman Barack Obama prevented the passage of an amendment to Bill 1082 that would have conveyed "the rights of personhood upon any fetus expelled or extracted from the womb if that fetus was capable of breathing or voluntary motion." Stanek argued that Obama had supported the killing of such infants and claimed that he had advocated for infanticide.
Stanek later accused Obama of allowing statutory rape to go undetected by opposing parental notification laws.
Stanek was critical of Sam Brownback of Kansas, a leading pro-life advocate, for compromising in supporting Barack Obama's nomination of pro-choice Kathleen Sebelius as Secretary of Health and Human Services.
Views on Scott Roeder
Regarding Scott Roeder, convicted murderer of George Tiller, Stanek wrote that she did not approve of Roeder's actions specifying, “I would have had no problem with late-term abortionist George Tiller being sentenced to death by a jury of his peers for committing thousands of murders of preborn children...but I did have a problem with Scott Roeder murdering Tiller. It was a premeditated, uncivil act.†Commenting on Roeder's murder trial, Stanek wrote that she believed Roeder did not have a "fair day in court" because Roeder should have been allowed to argue shooting Tiller fell under the lesser crime of voluntary manslaughter, based upon "an unreasonable but honest belief that circumstances existed that justify deadly force.†Stanek wrote that the fact that Roeder was initially allowed but later denied this legal argument "...shows that the only class of people who do not get their fair day in court are those who believe in the personhood of the preborn."
See also
- Kermit Gosnell
- United States pro-life movement
References
.External links
- Jill Stanek: Pro-Life Pulse (official website and blog)
