NRL News
Page 17
April 2009
Volume 36
Issue 4

Urge U.S. Senators to Reject Pro-Abortion Radical Dawn Johnsen, Obama’s Choice for a Top Legal Position

WASHINGTON (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).

The 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 nomination. A copy of the original letter can be viewed or downloaded, in PDF format, from the NRLC website at http://www.nrlc.org/obamaabortionagenda/JohnsenDawnNRLCletter.pdf

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, she 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 legal brief that claimed that limits on abortion constitute “reducing pregnant women to no more than fetal containers,” and has stated that “progressives must not portray all abortions as tragedies.”

Johnsen’s career as a pro-abortion ideologue suggests that if she is confirmed to the position of AAG-OLC by the U.S. Senate, 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 the week of April 20, 2009, although it could also be delayed until sometime in May. 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 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 REQUEST: Please take a few minutes to take one or both of the following actions:

(1) Go to the Legislative Action Center on the NRLC website, at http://www.capwiz.com/nrlc/home

There you will find a tool that makes it easy to send an appropriate message to both of your U.S. senators, urging them to vote against any effort to advance the nomination of Dawn Johnsen to the position of assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel. You can modify the suggested message as you see fit. When you fill in your mailing address, your messages will automatically be sent by e-mail to your two U.S. senators.

(2) Telephone the U.S. Senate switchboard at 202-224-3121, and ask to be connected to the office of one of your two U.S. senators. Once connected with the senator’s office, say that you want to be recorded as urging the senator to oppose the nomination of Dawn Johnsen as assistant attorney general, and specifically that you urge the senator to oppose “cloture” on this nomination. Tell the staff person that you wish to receive a letter explaining how the senator voted on this issue, and make sure that the staff person takes down your mailing address for this purpose. Then, hang up and repeat the process for your second U.S. senator.

Also: If you receive a letter or an e-mail or any other communication from one of your senators regarding this matter, please forward a copy of that communication to:

National Right to Life /Federal Legislation
512-10th Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20004
Legfederal@aol.com
Fax: 202-347-3668