Senator Orrin Hatch Will Vote Against Elena Kagan’s Supreme Court Bid
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
July 2, 2010
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — Senator Orrin Hatch is the first member of the Senate Judiciary Committee to officially announce his opposition to the nomination of pro-abortion activist Elena Kagan for the Supreme Court. The panel heard this week from Kagan and pro-life advocates about her memos urging support for partial-birth abortions.
Those memos played a role, Hatch said, in determining his vote.
"I have concluded that, based on evidence rather than blind faith, General Kagan regrettably does not meet this standard and that, therefore, I cannot support her appointment," Hatch said in a statement.
Hatch shares the concerns of pro-life groups about Kagan’s status as a judicial activist.
“Over nearly 25 years, General Kagan has endorsed, and praised those who endorse, an activist judicial philosophy. I was surprised when she encouraged us at the hearing simply to discard or ignore certain parts of her record. I am unable to do that," Hatch said.
"I also cannot ignore disturbing situations in which it appears that her personal or political views drove her legal views. She promoted the Clinton administration’s extreme position on abortion, including the barbaric practice of partial-birth abortion," Hatch added.
The pro-life Utah senator said a lack of experience also played a factor.
“Supreme Court Justices who, like General Kagan, had no prior judicial experience did have an average of 21 years in private legal practice. General Kagan has two. The fact that her experience is instead academic and political only magnifies my emphasis on judicial philosophy as the most important qualification for judicial service," hatch continued.
"I like her personally and I supported her to be Solicitor General. But applying the standard I have always used for judicial nominees, I cannot support her appointment to the Supreme Court," he concluded.
Hatch will likely join with most of the other Republicans on the committee in opposing Kagan, but they are outnumbered by pro-abortion Democrats who will likely all support her — with the potential exception of Arlen Specter, a former Republican.
Hatch has also said he won’t support a filibuster of Kagan’s nomination on the Senate floor. With a handful of pro-abortion Republicans likely joining Democrats to support her, GOP lawmakers are not expected to have the votes to sustain it.
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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