Editor's note. Below is an important action alert from National Right to Life that requires your help. You must go directly to http://www.capwiz.com/nrlc/issues/alert/?alertid=13020026&type=CO in order to use some of the tools mentioned at the end of the Alert. Please take a few minutes to do so.

UPDATED APRIL 7, 2009 - President Barack Obama has nominated a radical pro-abortion activist, Dawn Johnsen, to one of the most important legal positions in the federal Executive Branch -- the assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel (AAG-OLC).

AAG-OLC "provides authoritative legal advice to the President and all the Executive Branch agencies," according to the Department of Justice website. Thus, the person who serves as AAG-OLC plays an influential role both in construing existing laws and in evaluating the constitutional and legal implications of various legislative and administrative proposals.

On March 27, 2009, National Right to Life sent senators a letter urging them to vote against advancing the Dawn Johnsen nomination, including voting against cloture. The NRLC letter can be viewed or downloaded here.     http://www.nrlc.org/obamaabortionagenda/JohnsenDawnNRLCletter.pdf  (PDF format).

President Barack Obama has nominated a radical pro-abortion activist, Dawn Johnsen, to one of the most important legal positions in the federal Executive Branch.

Dawn Johnsen has a long history as a pro-abortion strategist, propagandist, and litigator, including about five years as legal director for NARAL, as well as work on behalf of the ACLU and Abortion Rights Mobilization. Throughout her career, Johnsen has expressed her opposition to all limitations on abortion in vivid terms, and she has often criticized courts for being, in her view, insufficiently expansive in their application of pro-abortion legal doctrine. For example, Johnsen has criticized the Supreme Court rulings that upheld the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, the Hyde Amendment that prohibits the use of federal Medicaid funds for abortion, and others. Moreover, Johnsen was the lead author of a brief that claimed that limits on abortion constitute "reducing pregnant women to no more than fetal containers," and she has stated that "progressives must not portray all abortions as tragedies." (To view or download a recent article by Johnsen that illustrates her thinking, click here. http://www.acslaw.org/files/Johnsen%20Issue%20Brief_01_08_0.pdf)

Johnsen's career as a pro-abortion ideologue suggests that if confirmed as AAG-OLC, she would use this office to impose highly ideological constructions on existing statutes dealing with abortion and other right-to-life concerns.

Johnsen's nomination was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee on March 19, 2009, by a party-line vote of 11-7. Her nomination may come for a vote before the full Senate as early as April 20. According to press reports, Republican senators may mount a filibuster against the nomination. If a filibuster occurs, Johnsen's supporters would be forced to muster 60 votes in order to end the filibuster ("invoke cloture") and confirm her.

On April 6, 2009, NARAL sent out an urgent nationwide legislative alert on Johnsen's behalf, which declared that any threat of a filibuster against Johnsen was "unacceptable," and proclaiming, "We must win every single time."

ACTION ITEM: Please take a few minutes to use the tool below (http://www.capwiz.com/nrlc/issues/alert/?alertid=13020026&type=CO)to send a message to your two U.S. senators, urging them to vote against approving the nomination of Dawn Johnsen to the position of assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel, including voting against "cloture." You can modify the suggested message as you see fit. When you fill in your mailing address, your messages will automatically be directed to your two U.S. senators.

Part Two -- Defense Fund Partners with NRLC to Promote Will to Live