Senate Will Vote on Kagan Nomination Before August Recess, Pro-Lifers Upset
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
July 21, 2010
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — Now that the Senate Judiciary Committee has confirmed pro-abortion Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says the full Senate vote will come before the August recess. Meanwhile, pro-life advocates expressed their displeasure with the committee vote.
Reid said on Tuesday that he planned to bring Kagan’s nomination up for a vote "before we leave for August recess."
The Senate Judiciary Committee approved President Barack Obama’s second pro-abortion Supreme Court nominee on a largely party-line 13-6 vote yesterday morning.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, a pro-life South Carolina Republican, joined the panel’s pro-abortion Democrats in voting for Kagan while his Republican colleagues opposed her.
Graham’s vote took some of the suspense out of the upcoming full Senate vote because it underscores the fact that Republicans opposed to Kagan likely don’t have enough votes to sustain a filibuster again her. Without a filibuster, Reid and his pro-abortion Democratic allies easily have enough votes for her confirmation.
Meanwhile, pro-life advocates bemoaned the panel’s approval of Kagan to replace retiring pro-abortion Justice John Paul Stevens.
Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life Action, told LifeNews.com the vote "is clouded by outstanding questions regarding her role in manipulating the medical statements of two major organizations on partial-birth abortion."
"Last week, AUL Action delivered a comprehensive, 54-page report to the Senate on this issue. I strongly encourage Senators to closely examine our report and to formally investigate her role in the partial-birth abortion debate before bringing this nomination to a floor vote. Based on these concerns, I urge the full Senate to roundly reject her nomination," she said.
Kristan Hawkins, the director of Students for Life of America, joined in the condemnation, saying, “Every American should be concerned that Elena Kagan has successfully passed through the Senate Judiciary Committee."
"Kagan has clearly shown her partisan and partial view of the law throughout her career in politics and academia. America needs an impartial and fair judge in the Supreme Court, not a Justice who votes based on previously held convictions," she said.
Hawkins added, "Any person who lobbies for Partial Birth Abortion is completely disconnected with the majority of Americans and is so blinded by their radical ideology that they do not deserve the honor to be called a United States Supreme Court Justice.”
And Family Research Council Action President Tony Perkins responded.
"Today’s vote ignores Elena Kagan’s troubling record of impassioned liberal activism and disregard for the law," he said. "Her political advocacy of partial-birth abortion in the face of medical evidence shows she isn’t bound by science."
"Elena Kagan has trampled every obstacle standing in the way of her pro-abortion" agenda, he added, saying it "calls into question her ability to be an impartial jurist."
A new Gallup poll shows just a plurality of Americans support Elena Kagan’s nomination to the Supreme Court and support for the pro-abortion Solicitor General is lower than the support for any recent previous Supreme Court nominee days before their committee vote.
During questioning at the hearings, lawmakers questioned Kagan on memos she wrote during the Clinton administration “manipulating” the opinions of two medical groups that had said partial-birth abortions are never medically necessary for women.
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.
Senators asked Kagan about the memos during Judiciary Committee hearings and she explained her actions away by saying she wanted to help ACOG form a more accurate opinion.
The memos are important because the Supreme Court initially relied on the opinion of the medical groups to overturn a state ban on partial-birth abortions that had no health exception.
Later, the Supreme Court reversed itself and said a national partial-birth abortion ban was constitutional and no health exception is necessary.
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.
ACTION: Contact your senators here and urge a no vote on Kagan’s nomination and tell them to filibuster her.
Related web sites:
Petition Against Kagan – https://www.iopposekagan.com
Facebook: Stop Kagan
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