June 21, 2010

By Dave Andrusko

Editor's note. Be sure to go to http://www.capwiz.com/nrlc/callalert/index.tt?alertid=15147096 so that you can voice your opposition to congressional efforts to restrict NRLC communications to the public! NRLC has rightly described the "DISCLOSE Act" as "pernicious, unprincipled, and unconstitutional legislation."

Part Two is a cautionary tale about NOT burning bridges. Over at National Right to Life News Today (www.nationalrighttolifenews.org), we have three exciting stories that cover the waterfront. Please send all of your comments to daveandrusko@gmail.com. If you like join those who are now following me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/daveha.

Tomorrow my wife and I will load up our car and we will set out for Pittsburgh and the 2010 National Right to Life Convention. If you haven't already signed up to attend this educational tour de force, it's not too late. At the absolute least consider coming for one day of the three day confab that brings together grassroots pro-lifers and outstanding speakers. (See http://stoptheabortionagenda.com/convention/schedule.)

Elena Kagan

Next Monday the Senate Judiciary Committee officially takes up the Supreme Court nomination of Elena Kagan, the former Dean of the Harvard Law School. National Right to Life opposes her confirmation. Let me make a couple of points, since we have written about her here, in National Right to Life News, and in National Right to Life News Today.

First, even by the standards of recent Supreme Court nominations, the Kagan campaign has been heavily scripted. "Choreographing Kagan's path to confirmation" was the headline on an Associated Press story last Friday.

Second, the more documents we read from the Clinton Presidential Library, the less Kagan's basic fallback strategy is credible. I mean by that Kagan would have you believe that she was a youngster who told ultra pro-abortion Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall what he wanted to hear when she clerked for him. That modesty is hardly persuasive when it comes to her years working for pro-abortion President Bill Clinton.

What even reporters highly sympathetic to her confirmation admit (or promote, depends on the context) is that even as a young attorney, Kagan was not afraid to speak her mind to more senior White House officials. So which is it? It's clearly the latter.

In fact, when it comes to abortion, in an interview that appeared as part of a Saturday New York Times story, Clinton clearly believes that Kagan was especially helpful in devising cover for his two vetoes of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. (See http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/us/politics/20clinton.html.) In fact, a fair reading of the memos is that Kagan made Clinton's final position on partial-birth abortion even worse than it was at the beginning.

Third, compared to Obama's first nominee, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Kagan's enthusiastic support for abortion--and her knack for helping Clinton hide his--is crystal-clear. This is not the birds of a feather argument--that because she has consistently worked for pro-abortionists therefore we know all we need to know.

It's much more straightforward. (I'm summarizing here what can be read in more detail at http://www.nrlc.org/News_and_Views/June10/nv061510part3.html)

In June 1996 while working for Clinton, Kagan learned in a private meeting with representatives of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists that "'in the vast majority of cases, selection of the partial birth procedure is not necessary to avert serious adverse consequences to a woman's health.'"

Kagan characterized this as "something of a revelation."

One infers from what follows that she expected ACOG to keep a lid on this explosive revelation. In December 1996, when she learned that ACOG was considering making a public statement along the same lines, she wrote that "the release of the statement, of course, would be [a] disaster -- not the less so (in fact, the more so) because ACOG continues to oppose the legislation." [Kagan is referring to the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, an NRLC-backed bill.]

In May, 1997, Kagan co-authored another memorandum in which she advised President Clinton to "endorse the Daschle amendment in order to sustain your credibility on HR 1122 [the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act] and prevent Congress from overriding your veto." The Daschle Amendment was an alternative bill, put forward by pro-abortion senators which NRLC denounced, in 1997, as a "phony ban." It would have applied no limitations at all on partial-birth abortions performed in the fifth and sixth months (before provable "viability"), and only loophole-ridden limits on abortions in the seventh, eighth, and ninth months.

In one memo, Kagan explicitly noted that Daschle's purpose was to "provide cover for pro-choice Senators (who can be expected to support it)," and thereby blunt the campaign to enact the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act.

And as the page one story explains in the June issue of National Right to Life News, Kagan is also bad on cloning, assisted suicide, the ability of government to impose restrictions on speech about politicians, and judicial activism. Five for five--from worse to worser.

Finally, just something to keep in the back of your mind. Today's Rasmussen's Presidential Approval Index has now reached a minus 15%. That is, while 29% strongly approve of Obama, 44% strongly disapprove.

Worth noting in passing about the Great Communicator is "The president's ratings fell following his speech last Tuesday night and reached new lows.

However, the negative bounce appears to be over and the public perception of the president is back to where it's been for months."

Again, please be sure to go to http://www.capwiz.com/nrlc/callalert/index.tt?alertid=15147096 so that you can voice your opposition to congressional efforts to restrict NRLC communications to the public!

Please send your comments to daveandrusko@gmail.com.

Part Two
Part Three