Pro-Life Groups Disappointed Senate Confirmed Abortion Advocate Elena Kagan
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
August 5, 2010
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — Leading pro-life organizations responded swiftly to the Senate vote confirming pro-abortion Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan. They said the hearings and Kagan’s extensive pro-abortion record make it clear she will be no friend of women and unborn children.
Wendy Wright, the president of Concerned Women for America, responded: “We expect that Elena Kagan will continue her life-long practice of using her position to place her opinion as the final authority over the law, treat the Constitution as optional, and re-write the facts to fit her agenda, all to the detriment of our country."
"Kagan’s presence at the Supreme Court will be a constant reminder to conservatives of the clear and present danger we face if we are not engaged in the political process to ensure only qualified people of character are in key positions," she said.
“As a White House official, Miss Kagan re-wrote the statement of a medical organization regarding partial-birth abortion in order to manipulate legislators and the courts," Wright complained.
Another pro-life leader also condemned Kagan’s judicial activism on partial-birth abortions.
“Today the Senate confirmed to the highest court a candidate without judicial experience and with a concerning history of promoting a pro-abortion agenda over the rule of law and the Constitution," said Susan B. Anthony List president Marjorie Dannenfelser.
She added: "From the outset of the Senate hearings, the SBA List called upon Senators to hold Elena Kagan to the standard of interpreting the Constitution, as opposed to advancing a personal ideological preference. Her confirmation is tragic news for women, the unborn and the American pro-life majority.”
“Elena Kagan’s alteration of the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologist’s (ACOG) statement on partial birth abortion exhibits a clear willingness to bend medical facts to support an ideological point of view and is inconsistent with the temperament required of a Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court," Dannenfelser said.
In her role as associate White House Counsel to President Clinton in 1996, Kagan recommended that ACOG add language indicating that 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 recommendation directly contradicted ACOG’s original statement which indicated that the organization “could identify no circumstances under which procedure… would be the only option to save the life or preserve the health of the woman.”
Kristan Hawkins of Students for Life of America also release a statement saying: “Today is a sad day for all Americans. Elena Kagan’s confirmation as the 112th Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court means that legalized abortion will continue for years to come. President Obama has fulfilled his agenda of becoming America’s most pro-abortion President."
"Elena Kagan has clearly shown her partisan and partial view of the law throughout her career in politics and law. America needs an impartial and fair judge in the Supreme Court, not a Justice who rules based on previously held convictions," she added.
"Any person who lobbies for Partial Birth Abortion and calls it a woman’s right is either completely disconnected with the majority of Americans who are opposed to Partial Birth Abortion or so blinded by their radical ideology that they do not deserve the honor to be called a United States Supreme Court Justice," she concluded.
Family Research Council President Tony Perkins had this to say on the vote: "Elena Kagan will bring a radical judicial philosophy and a history of sharp-edged political maneuvering to the nation’s highest legal bench. Her confirmation is another body-blow against genuine constitutional governance."
"She re-wrote a technical medical document, produced by the American Medical Association, in order to justify the brutal ‘partial birth abortion’ procedure the late Democratic Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan called ‘too close to infanticide,’" he added.
Perkins said those who voted for Kagan should face consequences at the polls.
"The others who voted for Ms. Kagan voted, by extension, for liberal activism on the nation’s highest court. This should not be lost on voters in November and I encourage them to send a strong message to President Obama about appointing federal judges who disregard our founding document," he said.
Also, Father Frank Pavone, the director of Priests for Life, said:
“The confirmation of a Supreme Court Justice who will not uphold the right to life of the unborn is an opportunity to repeat a simple truth: Any court decision, like Roe vs. Wade and others that affirm it, which say we have a right to do wrong, lack all juridical validity. They are null and void in principle, because they call violence a right. We have no obligation to obey them, and in fact, must resist them by conscientious objection.”
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