Senate Republican Leadership Now Unanimously Opposes Pro-Abortion Kagan
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
July 23, 2010
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — Sen. Lamar Alexander, the Tennessee Republican who is the chairman of the Senate GOP conference, announced his opposition today to the nomination of pro-abortion Solicitor general Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court. His announcement makes it so every top Republican lawmaker now opposes Kagan.
“I voted against the president’s nomination of Elena Kagan to be Solicitor General and I will vote against her confirmation to the Supreme Court for the same reason," Alexander said today in a statement.
“President Obama won the election, and I am not surprised that he would nominate someone to the Supreme Court whose political and judicial philosophy is different from mine,” he continued.
Although he voted for another pro-abortion nominee last year, Alexander says Kagan is too far outside the mainstream to receive his support.
“It is not necessary for a judicial nominee to be ‘on my side’ politically for me to vote to confirm her. One year ago I voted to confirm the president’s nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court," he said.
With his announcement, Kagan now has only two GOP supporters, Sen Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Dick Lugar of Indiana.
Both are pro-life but they say presidents should be entitled to have their Supreme Court nominees confirmed.
But they are isolated form the rest of the Republican senators — including leaders like Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Minority Whop Jon Kyl of Arizona, Senate GOP elections chief John Cornyn of Texas and Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Jeff Sessions of Alabama.
All are pro-life lawmakers and all of them are opposed to Kagan’s nomination.
A Senate floor vote on Kagan’s nomination is expected in early August before the Senate breaks for its August recess and the unofficial start of campaign and election season. Sotomayor received nine Republican votes last August, but Kagan is expected to attract less GOP support.
Yet, with lawmakers like Graham and Lugar, and potentially other Republicans, supporting Kagan there is virtually no chance of Republicans having the ability to filibuster her nomination and stop a vote from taking place.
Kagan’s nomination was approved by Judiciary Committee members this week on a 13-6 vote, with Graham as the only member of the panel supporting the abortion advocate along with pro-abortion Democrats on the committee. All of the other Republicans voted no.
Looking at past nominees, Chief Justice John Roberts was confirmed by a 78-22 Senate vote in September 2005 and Justice Samuel Alito was confirmed by the Senate on a 58-42 vote in January 2006.
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. Contact Luagr’s office at (202) 224-4814 or email him here.
Related web sites:
Petition Against Kagan – https://www.iopposekagan.com
Facebook: Stop Kagan
Sign Up for Free Pro-Life News From LifeNews.com
Daily Pro-Life News Report Twice-Weekly Pro-Life
News Report Receive a free daily email report from LifeNews.com with the latest pro-life news stories on abortion, euthanasia and stem cell research. Sign up here. Receive a free twice-weekly email report with the latest pro-life news headlines on abortion, euthanasia and stem cell research. Sign up here.
