New AUL Report Fully Details Elena Kagan’s Partial-Birth Abortion Distortions
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
July 15, 2010
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — Americans United for Life, the pro-life legal group, has released a new comprehensive report detailing the manner in which Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan manipulated the statements of two medical organizations, resulting in keeping partial-birth abortions legal for several years more.
The report had been slated to be released during a press conference with Senator Jeff Sessions, ranking Member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, but he was called away for a Senate vote.
The report contains new information regarding Elena Kagan’s role, during her time in the Clinton Administration, in pressuring the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists to change their policy statement on partial-birth abortion.
"Americans United for Life Action calls for a Senate investigation into the facts surrounding Elena Kagan’s amendment to the Policy Statement of the American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists (ACOG) on partial-birth abortion," the report, provided to LifeNews.com, reads.
The pro-life group wants the investigation to focus on "the discrepancies in Kagan’s testimony before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on June 30, 2010, and the distorting impact of Kagan’s amendment on federal judicial and Supreme Court consideration of state and federal prohibitions on partial-birth abortion between 1997 and 2007."
"Kagan’s actions have raised unresolved questions," AUL maintains — and it had devastating consequences for abortion and the Supreme Court.
"Because of the lack of other reliable scientific data, the ACOG Policy Statement, as Kagan amended it, was relied upon by federal courts to invalidate the laws of 30 states and an act of Congress. This seriously compromised the integrity of the U.S. federal judicial process for more than a decade," the organization continues.
"Kagan’s willingness to amend and politicize an impartial medical report by a major medical organization in order to affect legal and judicial events at the highest level of the American judicial system, relating to a major piece of Congressional legislation, raises serious questions," the group added.
The memos Kagan wrote influencing ACOG and the American Medical Association have become a national debate concerning her Senate confirmation.
One aspect the AUL memo raises that has not been focused on to this point concerns the timeline of her involvement in influencing ACOG.
Kagan seems to claim, in her testimony before the Senate committee, that she was simply a scribe for changes coming from ACOG.
Kagan met with ACOG representatives in June 1996 and, AUL asks, if "her amendment came from ACOG, why did its draft statement in December 1996 not have the language that Kagan subsequently added?"
"How could Kagan presume to alter the medical findings of ACOG’s ‘select panel’ with such a substantive change? And, if Kagan had had talks with ACOG officials in which they expressed the views reflected in her amendment, why did Kagan react so strongly that ACOG’s draft was a ‘disaster’?" AUL asked.
AUL argues it is clear that Kagan’s language added to the ACOG memo the Supreme Court cited for overturning the partial-birth abortion bans in dozens of states came after ACOG would not change the language itself and she decided to apply political pressure on the medical group to do so.
AUL also notes the ACOG executive board unilaterally added the statement—which we now know was drafted by Kagan—that a partial-birth abortion “may be the best or most appropriate procedure in a particular circumstance to save the life or preserve the health of a woman….”
The group says records reveal ACOG did so "without consulting the panel" of medical doctors who came to the conclusion Kagan disagreed with in the first place that partial-birth abortions are never medically necessary for women.
"The statement was never approved by the select panel or voted upon by ACOG’s membership," AUL notes.
"Elena Kagan’s willingness to amend and politicize an impartial medical report by a major medical organization to affect legal and judicial events at the highest level of the American judicial system, relating to a major piece of Congressional legislation, clearly demonstrates her disregard for the integrity of the legal and judicial process," AUL concludes.
"Because of the lack of reliable scientific data, the ACOG Policy Statement, as Kagan amended it, was relied on by federal courts to invalidate the laws of 30 states and an act of Congress. Kagan’s disregard seriously compromised the integrity of the U.S. federal judicial process for more than a decade," it adds.
Related web sites:
Americans United for Life – https://www.aulaction.org
New Kagan Report – https://www.aul.org/featured-images/Kagan-Ethics-Report.pdf
Petition Against Kagan – https://www.iopposekagan.com
Facebook: Stop Kagan
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