A birth abstract, as a legal document, is a computer summary of the information related to the birth of the subject.
An extracted copy of a birth certificate is the official, legally valid photo copy of the original, signed by doctor, parents and witnessed, official long form document with baby foot print on back
An abstracted copy may consist of information extracted from multiple sources and some information, such as parental information on an abstract may be unavailable, excluded or pulled from sources other than the official extracted (i.e.) birth certificate.
Most abstracts are unacceptable for passports and other official purposes.
If some one wanted to provide a forged birth certificate, doing so with what is officially an abstracted Certificate of Birth would limit criminal and civil liability.
This is because the abstracted copy of a birth certificate is not not an official copy of the original extracted Birth Certificate document, nor is valid for proof of birth for most official government or or other legal purposes.
As such, an abstracted copy of a birth certificate may legally omit information contained on the official extracted copy of the birth certificate as well as legally incorporating information not listed on the official extracted copy of the birth certificate but drawn from other sources, both public and private. This source of added information can potentially be as unofficial as an unverified verbal statement of fact from the person requesting the abstracted document.
Which is why one cannot use abstracted copies of a birth certificate to get a passport, drivers license or be used for official or legal identification purposes.
Interestingly, the document supplied as Obama’s abstracted birth certificate document is not in the form a computer print out as is common for an abstracted copy, but instead is in the format of an official Extracted Birth certificate photo copy of of the original birth records
Since the document supplied by the White House Staff is presented as meeting the legal qualifications of abstracted birth certificate copy as opposed to purporting it to be a legally valid, officially certified extracted photo copy it may legally contain additions or deletions not found on the original birth document in the archives.
Since no one has officially claimed that the internet published Obama Birth Certificate is an official, legally valid, extracted copy, ( in fact they have carefully publicly disclosed that the Obama Birth Certificate presented is,in fact, nothing more than an unofficial abstracted copy ) there is legal wiggle room to argue that there was no controlling legal authority that can bring charges of fraud or forgery against the President or anyone involved in the manufacture, drafting, production or publishing of the document.
Assuming there was an intent to mislead, it can be argued that it was done in such a way that the legal of the document was couched using very cleverly lawyered terminology to give the impression of an official, legally valid document while at the same time providing plausible legal deniability for any downstream charges of fraud or forgery and to minimize any formal criminal liability if the published document was ever scrutinized and legally challenged as to it's validity
The problem is that the state of Hawaii, under both the Republican Administration of former Governor Linda Lingle and the Democrat administration of Governor Neal Abercrombie continually issued statements of validation for the abstract computer print out short form and the PDF digital reproduction of the long form.
Under Article IV, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution, the “Full faith and credit clause” whatever public record a state says is official and authentic will be accepted in every other state.
There have been eight verification statements by various officials of the state of Hawaii:
1) The first authenticity statement by Hawaii Department of Health Director Dr. Chiyome Fukino, MD. issued October 31, 2008:
http://health.hawaii.gov/vitalrecords/files/2013/05/08-93.pdf
2) Second authenticity statement by Dr. Chiyome Fukino, MD. issued July 27, 2009:
http://health.hawaii.gov/vitalrecords/files/2013/05/09-063.pdf
3) Televised interview with Dr. Fukino on Obama birth certificate authenticity. http://youtu.be/e9D4n6_Uifk
4) Verification of authenticity press release, state of Hawaii, issued April 27, 2011:
http://health.hawaii.gov/vitalrecords/files/2013/05/News_Release_Birth_Certificate_042711.pdf
5) Certified Letter of Verification from Hawaii Registrar of Vital Statistics prepared for Arizona Secretary of State: http://archive.azcentral.com/12news/Obama-Verification.pdf
6) Certified Letter of Verification from Registrar Alvin T. Onaka prepared for Kansas Secretary of State:
http://www.scribd.com/mobile/doc/106576604
7) Certified Letter of Verification prepared at the request of the defense from Registrar Alvin T. Onaka for the Mississippi eligibility challenge, U.S. District Court Judge Henry T. Wingate, Southern District of Mississippi:
http://www.scribd.com/mobile/doc/96289285
(See exhibits on last two pages of the Motion To Supplement Counsel.
8) Radio interview transcript, Governor Linda Lingle of Hawaii naming Kapi’olani Hospital as the Barack Obama birthplace:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/right-now/2010/05/hawaii_gov_lingle_answers_the.html
That is incorrect.
Abstracted certificates (a.k.a., "short forms") are what is used most often for official purposes. (Though some short forms omit parent information, and those are sometimes insufficient for things like passports.)
Both my children have been issued computer-generated forms that list simply: Name, D.o.B, Place of Birth (City and State), Father and Mother names with ages and places of birth, the certificate filed date, certificate number, signature of registrar and issue date and seal. These have been sufficient for DMV purposes (in multiple states) and for issuance of passports.
Furthermore, the printed certification says: "I do hereby certify that the above is a true copy of the essential facts recorded on the birth record on file in this office for the individual named hereon." Nothing is said about verifying an ORIGINAL birth record, or that such is a "true and complete copy of the original birth record" or other such stuff some here have erroneously asserted is necessary to serve as legally sufficient evidence of the birth facts.
A true long form (i.e, a copy of the vault original containing things like the hospital, doctor's name, parent residence, racial information, doctor/mother signatures, etc.) is not needed for official purposes.