Kagan Fudged Study Results to Justify Partial Birth Abortion in Court

gateway pundit ^ | 6/29/10 | jim hoft

[cornelis]

Elena Kagan fudged the results of a study on partial birth abortion in order to justify the procedure in court.

Just to refresh your memory… During partial birth abortion babies are pulled feet-first from the womb and stabbed through the back of the skull.



Elena Kagan sent this note to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists telling them to fudge their report on partial birth abortion.

Power Line reported on this scandal by radical Elena Kagan:

A key event in the politics of partial-birth abortion was a report by a “select panel” of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), a supposedly nonpartisan physicians’ organization. That report included this statement, which the Supreme Court found highly persuasive in striking down Nebraska’s partial-birth abortion ban:

< ACOG declared that the partial-birth-abortion procedure “may be the best or most appropriate procedure in a particular circumstance to save the life or preserve the health of a woman.” The Court relied on the ACOG statement as a key example of medical opinion supporting the abortion method.

Here is the shocking part: the ACOG report, as originally drafted, said almost exactly the opposite. The initial draft said that the ACOG panel “could identify no circumstances under which this procedure . . . would be the only option to save the life or preserve the health of the woman.” That language horrified the rabidly pro-abortion Elena Kagan, then a deputy assistant to President Clinton for domestic policy. This is what Kagan wrote in a memo to her superiors in the Clinton White House:

Todd Stern just discovered that the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) is thinking about issuing a statement (attached) that includes the following sentence: “[A] select panel convened by ACOG could identify no circumstances under which [the partial-birth] procedure … would be the only option to save the life or preserve the health of the woman.” This, of course, would be disaster — not the less so (in fact, the more so) because ACOG continues to oppose the legislation. It is unclear whether ACOG will issue the statement; even if it does not, there is obviously a chance that the draft will become public.

So Kagan took matters into her own hands: incredibly, she herself appears to have written the key language that eventually appeared in the ACOG report. Coffin writes:

So Kagan set about solving the problem. Her notes, produced by the White House to the Senate Judiciary Committee, show that she herself drafted the critical language hedging ACOG’s position. On a document [PDF] captioned “Suggested Options” — which she apparently faxed to the legislative director at ACOG — Kagan proposed that ACOG include the following language: “An intact D&X [the medical term for the procedure], however, may be the best or most appropriate procedure in a particular circumstance to save the life or preserve the health of a woman.”

Kagan’s language was copied verbatim by the ACOG executive board into its final statement...

[rhombus]

Does “fudge” mean lie?

[MrB]

The ends always justify the means to a liberal.
There is a specific ideological base belief that explains this,

but suffice it to say that this will not be an issue to the left.

[DManA]

Powerline does it again.

[rhombus]

suffice it to say that this will not be an issue to the left.

With so many global warming hoaxes and altering advice to support a moratorium on drilling? And the promise of stem-cell cocktails to cure everything everywhere? Not a chance will this be an issue. Apparently the rightful place of science is propaganda.

[P-Marlowe]

It doesn't matter. She could have performed partial birth abortions and she is going to be approved.

The only saving grace is that she is so utterly unqualified to sit on the bench that she will have little, if any, influence over any other justice. She had her head handed to her in her first and only oral argument before the SCOTUS. She was totally unprepared to argue before the SCOTUS and she is totally unprepared to take a seat. She is Obama's "yes" man and when Obama is gone, she is going to be lost.

It is embarrassing that she was even nominated. She will be a continuing embarrassment to the SCOTUS for decades and I think the other justices are going to resent that fact.

[spintreebob]

Does “fudge” mean lie?

No, it means progressive aka by any means necessary.

[cornelis]

Remind me why Bork was not confirmed . . .

[butterdezillion]

You may be right, but we can’t give up without a fight. If she gets approved it should only be AFTER Congress steps over the corpse of truth that we point out to them vocally. We need an outcry.

Think of the damage to our future if all science is bastardized this way. And if we let them get away with doing it, they will do it on EVERY SINGLE THING THEY TOUCH, which is everything.

[P-Marlowe]

You may be right, but we can’t give up without a fight. If she gets approved it should only be AFTER Congress steps over the corpse of truth that we point out to them vocally. We need an outcry.

Obama has created a situation where there are just so many things to outcry against that the American people are just numbed. Where do we put all our efforts? Into this? Or into repealing Obama Care? Or into stopping Cap and Trade? Or in fixing the Gulf crisis? Or in trying to save the internet? Or trying to save our free speech rights? Or trying to stop the profigate spending that is going to bankrupt our children?

Need I go on?

Is there some kind of way of triaging these crises?

Obama is going to appoint a left wing clone of himself to the Supreme Court. If not Kagan, then somebody. We are not going to stop it. This is one battle we cannot win.

[xzins]

She won’t be any worse than Stevens. Stevens in the majority was a living terror and would have continued to have been one....witness his 2d amendment dissent. He’s anti-life, anti-self preservation instinct, anti-constitution, and anti-God. That pretty well sums up Kagan, too.

The real danger is having something befall Scalia, Thomas, Alito, or Roberts. Kennedy on his worst day is still better than any of the liberal justices on their best day.

We had it in our grasp after decades of trying to finally have a conservative court. John McCain’s candidacy and non-campaign killed all hope for that. That’s one reason I’ll listen to conspiracy theories that he actually wanted to lose.

(There should be a law requiring holders of any political office to resign it prior to running for the presidency. They should have no fall-fact position.)

[DrC]

“but suffice it to say that this will not be an issue to the left.”

This implies it is neutral evidence regarding her qualifications. Quite the contrary: this is likely to amplify their support for her on grounds that it clearly shows that from their perspective she “gets it” and is “one of us”—i.e., completely uninhibited and shameless in twisting the truth in the service of further the progressive project in America.

[Oldpuppymax]

“FUDGED??” Perpetrating a FRAUD is not FUDGING!!! Fudging is a toe crossing the line in bowling.

[The Duke]

I guess all that’s really important to Kagen is that the innocent is being killed.

[butterdezillion]

Great questions. Exactly the questions we need to be asking.

I think if we get rid of Obama by exposing the lawlessness that put him in place in the first place, we kill all those birds with one stone - because we let the political powers know that we are a force to be reckoned with and we will NOT allow the lawlessness to destroy this nation. We need to let the R’s and the D’s know we’re mad as Hell and we’re not going to take it any more.

If you’re not familiar with the documented crimes which put Obama in power, there’s a summary (as concise as I was able to make it) at http://butterdezillion.wordpress.com/2010/01/11/red-flags-in-hawaii-2/

What we’re really tired of fighting is the lawlessness. We need to combine all these bigger issues into the root cause - which is lawlessness within government, media, and law enforcement. That is the hole in the dike, so to speak. We’ve got to “plug the damn hole” or else any laws we make are as useless as a screendoor on a submarine (to quote Rich Mullins. lol). They won’t be enforced anyway, and while we wasted time fighting to get that law passed Obama and his cohorts took over 5 other infrastructure foundations.

[reagandemocrat]

Contemptuous.

Kagan should be before the Federal bar explaining herself, rather than the Senate.

[Humal]

Would you give me your opinion on Obama’s remarks at the beginning of this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwhKuunp8D8&feature=player_embedded It may be something that was taken out of context; I don’t know.

[Humal]

I wonder if the committee has seen this? If they have, they should ask Kegan about it. Even if she fudges her way through it, the question and her answer would be on the record. I do not see how she can be approved, but then the Democrats do have the majority on the committee.

[cornelis]

Hatch questioned her on this today (from NRO):

Here are my quick notes on the exchange between Elena Kagan and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R., Utah) on her partial-birth abortion memo.

12:03 P.M.: Hatch is taking up the topic of the Shannen Coffin piece. Could be interesting.

Hatch: "Did you write that memo?"

Kagan: "With respect, I don't think that's what happened here."

Kagan says "the document is certainly in my hand-writing. I don't know if the document is the product of a conversation I had with them . . ."

Kagan says Clinton had "strong views on this issue" and favored health exceptions. "We tried over the course of the period of time when this statute was being considered. . . to get him the best medical evidence on this subject as possible." "We tried to bring all the conflicting views to his attention."

"What ACOG thought was . . . on the one hand they couldn't think of a circumstance in which this procedure was the absolutely only procedure that could be used in a given case. . . but they could think of circumstances in which it was the medically best procedure . . . with the least risk attached to it."

"We knew that ACOG thought both of these things. . ."

Kagan goes on. Hatch asks again "did you write 'this would be a disaster'?" Kagan says yes, the disaster would be that ACOG didn't express both parts of what it believed.

"In their final statement, that sentence. . . that it was not the only procedure of course remained."

Hatch says "this bothers me a lot," that he know there are plenty of doctors in ACOG who did not believe partial-birth abortion was a necessary procedure. "That bothers me that you intervened in that particular area in that way."

Kagan says there is "no way" she "would have or could have" gotten ACOG to change its medical opinion.

More at the Corner. Coburn says Kagan could be filibustered. We'll see.

[Waco]

Remember the numerous medical shows on TV? Ben Casy etc. There would be a show dealing with ‘’breach birth’’. The star Doctor would have a new procedure to correct the problem. Partial birth abortion is nothing more than arrangeing a breach birth, then terminating the babies life instead of delivering it. If a woman requested a breach birth and the Dr. agreed to it, he would be in serious ethical trouble, I think.