There is a lot of confusion about it, and to be as charitable as possible the confusion has extended to members of the Obama 2008 campaign team and the reporters covering the controversy. Here’s an article I wrote about it in 2012. Short version: The Obama campaign and his defenders have offered several explanations for his position that cannot withstand scrutiny, but at the time of the Illinois legislative debate he made his views reasonably clear. He did not believe that a “pre-viable” infant wholly outside the womb should receive any legal protection, because extending such protection would be inconsistent with the principle behind Roe v. Wade.
There is, as NR’s editors have explained, a certain chilling logic to Obama’s position. All sides in the debate about that position, though, ought to be able to acknowledge that it was his. And, as far as I know, he has never repudiated it.