Pro-Abortion Supreme Court Nominee Elena Kagan Likely Getting GOP Support
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
June 1, 2010
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — A handful of Republicans look as if they may support the nomination of pro-abortion activist Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court. One Republican is an abortion advocate but three others are lawmakers who typically vote pro-life and a vote for Kagan would disappoint pro-life organizations.
Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine and Richard Lugar of Indiana have praised Kagan in recent days as has Sen. George LeMieux of Florida.
“I generally take the position of feeling that the president, whoever that is at the time, should have the opportunity to make a nomination and to have serious consideration of that nomination,” Lugar said.
Graham, a member of the Judiciary Committee that will hold confirmation hearings on Kagan starting on June 28.
"I think that argument is not going to go very far," he said of those who argue against Kagan’s nomination because of her lack of judicial experience.
LeMieux, who had a lengthy meeting with Kagan last week, agreed.
"I don’t find that in any way a prohibition to her service," LeMieux said, according to an AP report.
Graham and LeMieux said they could not yet predict how they will vote on Kagan, who received the support of seven Republicans for her confirmation as Solicitor General. However, GOP lawmakers are expected to scrutinize her harder for the high court positions.
Manuel Miranda, of the conservative judicial group Third Branch Conference, told Bloomberg News Kagan may receive votes from Republicans and possibly more votes than pro-abortion Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, who was confirmed 68-31 last year.
“Elena Kagan is going to get much more support from Republicans,” Miranda said, predicting as many as 70 votes.
Collins, Olympia Snowe of Maine and Scott Brown of Massachusetts have all said that their meetings with Kagan eased their concerns about her. None of the three are pro-life advocates or sensitive to the worry that Kagan would keep unlimited abortions legal for decades more.
The latest Rasmussen Reports poll shows the percentage of Americans who say they believe pro-abortion nominee Elena Kagan will be confirmed by the Senate for the open Supreme Court spot has risen. The numbers are going up despite strong opposition to her nomination.
Kagan has a very clear pro-abortion record heading into that process, including recent information showing she donated to pro-abortion groups with ties to the Emily’s List organization that endorses pro-abortion candidates with the most extreme position favoring taxpayer funded abortions.
Obama’s nominee also wrote a memo during the Clinton adminsitration providing him political cover for his veto of a bill banning partial-birth abortions. She attacked pro-life advocates in a 1980 essay and has a history of working for pro-abortion judges and politicians.
Kagan, a former Harvard Law dean, is an ardent abortion advocate who, at 50, would leave a pro-abortion legacy for Obama on the Supreme Court for decades to come.
"Elena Kagan has strong ties to abortion-advocacy organizations and expressed admiration for activist judges who have worked to advance social policy rather than to impartially interpret the law," Charmaine Yoest, the president of Americans United for Life, told LifeNews.com.
She said her group would "oppose President Obama’s attempt to reshape the Court as an activist, pro-abortion institution through which unelected judges will work to impose an out-of-the-mainstream social agenda upon the American people."
Yoest called Kagan "an ardent abortion supporter" who fulfills Obama’s pledge to nominate a justice who strongly supports abortion.
Kagan has publicly and repeatedly criticized federal regulations that prohibited recipients of Title X family planning funds, taxpayer dollars, from counseling women to get abortions — arguing they amounted to the subsidization of "anti-abortion" speech.
She has spent most of her career in academia and government — in part as a legal counsel in the administration of pro-abortion President Bill Clinton –and prior to becoming the attorney for the Obama administration before the Supreme Court. Kagan was Associate Counsel to President Bill Clinton and Deputy Assistant to him for domestic policy — which, under Clinton, advocated abortion.
LifeNews.com spoke with Wendy Wright, the president of Concerned Women for America, before the nomination.
Kagan was credited by the ACLU with “shaping Clinton’s policy on hate crimes," Wright noted.
"The Clinton Administration treated pro-life activists like violent criminals, creating a task force in the Department of Justice and a grand jury to investigate peaceful pro-lifers. This raises serious concerns that she shares the hostile view that religious beliefs are a form of ‘hate,’" she said.
Kagan has also come under criticism from Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of the pro-life women’s group Susan B. Anthony List.
She told LifeNews.com previously, "In the past Kagan has been a strong supporter of the pro-abortion agenda. She has vigorously opposed the de-funding of taxpayer-funded clinics which promote abortions, despite the fact that a majority of Americans do not want their tax dollars to fund abortion providers."
Kagan’s nomination confirmed the suspicion of many political observers that Obama decided to go with a radical left-wing nominee while Democrats control the Senate with a huge advantage that is expected to deteriorate after the November elections.
Related web sites:
Petition Against Kagan – https://www.iopposekagan.com
Facebook: Stop Kagan
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