After Senate Committee Hearings, Pro-Lifers Say Reject Pro-Abortion Elena Kagan
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
July 2, 2010
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — Now that the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on the nomination of pro-abortion Supreme Court selection Elena Kagan have concluded, pro-life organizations say the panel should reject Kagan’s nomination. They say she has been exposed as a hardcore pro-abortion activist.
The centerpiece of the hearings from the pro-life perspective came when lawmakers, primarily Sen. Orrin Hatch, queried Kagan about her abortion memos.
Kagan’s story seemed to vacillate as she initially could not remember, but then admitted to writing, memos that urged the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists to change its position on partial-birth abortions.
While Kagan’s memos resulted in pressuring ACOG to back down on its assertion that the three-day-long abortion procedure is never necessary to protect the life or health of a woman, and while the Supreme Court ultimately cited ACOG’s revised stance to overturn a state ban on the abortion procedure, Kagan insisted she was merely doing the bidding of former President Bill Clinton, who vetoed a national ban.
Testifying before the committee yesterday, Americans United for Life president Charmaine Yoest told the panel that not only should the Senate reject her nomination, senators should investigate discrepancies between her written record and her testimony to the committee.
She also reminded them that Kagan also sought to influence the American Medical Association and get the AMA to revise its opinion that partial-birth abortions provide no medical benefit for women.
Her actions to mute the voices of the doctors on the issue of abortion were a concern for both Hatch and pro-life Sen. Jeff Sessions, an Alabama Republican. Both questioned Yoest extensively on abortion, which Sessions called "an intense social issue and moral issue."
Yoest testified: "Based on our research, we believe that Ms. Kagan will be an agenda-driven justice on the Court, and that she will oppose even the most widely-accepted protections for unborn human life."
Now, Yoest says the committee should definitely vote against Kagan, and she said the hearings strengthened her group’s opposition to her nomination.
"These hearings have strengthened our opposition to Ms. Kagan’s appointment as the record shows she was willing to manipulate the facts to pursue her own personal political agenda while serving as an advisor to President Clinton. Indeed, she demonstrated a pattern of behavior of letting her passion for a particular policy — in this case partial-birth abortion — overwhelm her judgment,’ Yoest says.
Meanwhile, Students for Life of America led two protests of the Kagan nomination at the Capitol
Kristan Hawkins, the director of the pro-life youth group, told LifeNews.com her organization opposes Kagan because of her "disturbing pro-abortion record" of "30 years of a judicial activist."
And Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, who also testified before the committee, says pro-life advocates and the committee should oppose the Kagan nomination.
"If there’s one thing that will be confirmed in this process, it’s Elena Kagan’s deep hostility to the values that Americans hold dear–values like patriotism, family, freedom, and faith," he said.
Pro-life groups have described Elena Kagan as the stereotypical judicial activist and abortion advocate.
She clerked for pro-abortion Justice Thurgood Marshall, whom she lauded, and her writings dating back to her college days are filled with accolades for judges who took the law into their hands and twisted it for a desired outcome rather than relying on the people through their elected officials.
Kagan helped Bill Clinton defend his veto of a partial-birth abortion ban — the gruesome abortion procedure when a baby is birthed halfway and then jabbed in the head with medical scissors, killing him or her. She helped Clinton find political cover for his decision to keep those abortions legal.
Kagan went as far as advocating that the Clinton administration not only ignore but manipulate the opinion of a national medical group that said there was never any medical justification for killing unborn children halfway out of the birth canal.
Kagan has also lauded human cloning and assisted suicide and we can expect those gruesome practices to expand if she becomes the next Supreme Court justice.
Related web sites:
Petition Against Kagan – https://www.iopposekagan.com
Facebook: Stop Kagan
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