Obama Explains Remarks on "Mental Distress" and Abortion

Following recent controversial remarks in Relevant Magazine (see previous post) that seemed to dismiss the need for a mental health exception for abortion, Senator Obama clarified those comments for reporters.  Frank James of The Swamp has posted the transcript.

The Swamp (Chicago Tribune), Obama Backs Late, Mental-Health Abortion, by Frank James:

Here's a transcript of the interchange as provided by the campaign.

Reporter: You said that mental distress shouldn't be a reason for late-term abortion?

Obama: "My only point is this -- historically I have been a strong believer in a women's right to choose with her doctor, her pastor and her family. And it is ..I have consistently been saying that you have to have a health exception on many significant restrictions or bans on abortions including late-term abortions.

In the past there has been some fear on the part of people who, not only people who are anti-abortion, but people who may be in the middle, that that means that if a woman just doesn't feel good then that is an exception. That's never been the case.

I don't think that is how it has been interpreted. My only point is that in an area like partial-birth abortion having a mental, having a health exception can be defined rigorously. It can be defined through physical health, It can be defined by serious clinical mental-health diseases. It is not just a matter of feeling blue. I don't think that's how pro-choice folks have interpreted it. I don't think that's how the courts have interpreted it and I think that's important to emphasize and understand."

According to Linda Douglass, the Obama campaign's senior spokesperson, the senator from Illinois was making a distinction in the magazine interview between medically diagnosed mental illness and the kind of mental distress that an unwanted pregnancy causes many a pregnant mother.

"Mental distress is not an illness." Douglass said. "He absolutely believes and has always said there has to be a health exception for serious physical and mental illness."

Here is Jan Greenburg's response to Obama's clarification.  Greenburg's main point is that Obama's refusal to include "mental distress" is more limiting than the Supreme Court's articulation of a health exception in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton:

This standard has long been understood to require less than "serious clinical mental health disease."  Women today don't have to show they are suffering from a "serious clinical mental health disease" or "mental illness" before getting an abortion post-viability, as Obama now says is appropriate.

It's hard to know what Obama means by all of these terms, though.  Certainly, the notion that women get late abortions because they are "blue" echoes accusations that anti-choice advocates have hurled for decades, namely that women seek late abortion for trivial reasons.  It would be nice to see Obama attack that accusation directly.  It would also be reassuring to hear him reaffirm his support for the Freedom of Choice Act which, as Greenburg points out, includes an unqualified exception for health-protective, post-viability abortions.