Senate GOP Considers Filibuster of Obama Judicial Nominee Who Compared Pregnancy to Slavery
President Obama’s nominee to head the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel once compared “forced pregnancy” with slavery. Now Republicans are considering a filibuster to block her confirmation.
The controversy stems from comments made 20 years ago by Dawn Johnsen, a law professor at Indiana University, whose nomination is pending before the full Senate.
In a brief filed when she was a lawyer with the National Abortion Rights Action League, Johnsen cited a footnote that said forcing women to bear children was “disturbingly suggestive of involuntary servitude, prohibited by the 13th Amendment, in that forced pregnancy requires a woman to provide continuous physical service to the fetus in order to further the state’s asserted interest.”
At least 45 House Republicans have co-signed a letter to Obama asking him to withdraw Johnsen’s nomination because of her “brazen” abortion rights stance.
NARAL said this week it is mobilizing its nationwide network of activists and supporters to pressure the Senate to confirm Johnsen and two other Obama nominees — Judge David Hamilton and Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius — and stop what it deems attacks on nominees who support abortion rights. Filibusters won’t be tolerated, the group said.
“The use of the ‘F’ word when referring to any of these nominees is unacceptable — and this threat will not go unanswered,” NARAL president Nancy Keenan said in a press release
But during the Bush Administration, how many appointees were filibusterd? How hypocritical can they be?
This party is so out of wack, it is just scarry.
KIRSTEN POWERS: Women Are Not Delicate Little Flowers Despite What NARAL and Planned Parenthood Think
Click here to read the entire Op-Ed
The organization NARAL Pro Choice America blasted Virginia’s Governor Tim Kaine — the chairman of the Democratic National Committee — on Tuesday for signing a bill that, NARAL says, includes state funding for crisis pregnancy centers. Essentially, if someone buys a “Choose Life” license plate, some of the proceeds would go to crisis centers.
What are they so afraid of? Are their manipulative tactics and practices being threatened?
Women are not delicate little flowers who can’t handle information, despite what NARAL Pro Choice and Planned Parenthood tell us. They should have the option of having all the information presented to them before an abortion so they understand what they are doing.
And that is what everyone should be offerd. Information about all their options. Choices.
NARAL claims that crisis pregnancy centers — which exist to dissuade women from having an abortion — mislead woman. In New York, abortion rights groups lobbied Attorney General Eliot Spitzer to shut down such centers because they allegedly “scared” women.
And they should scare them a little bit. Abortion is taking the life of the most innocent and unprotected. This is not a form of birth control. Giving the woman a choice to have or provide a couple with an adoptive baby is much more worthy than terminating the life of the infant. What are they so scared of?
Women are not delicate little flowers who can’t handle information, despite what NARAL Pro Choice and Planned Parenthood tell us. They should have the option of having all the information presented to them before an abortion so they understand what they are doing.
How true is this? Women are a lot tougher, smarter, and able to make decisions about life than an angry pro-choice mob demanding abortion rights (which I, obviously, do not agree with). Women in this situation need to know all the facts so they can make an informed decision, not one based on radical ideology.
Abortion-rights activists sneer about anti-abortion advocates ignoring science. But the reality is that science is not on the side of NARAL or their ilk, and they know that. That’s why they don’t want women looking at ultrasounds or hearing that what they call a “little clump of cells” has a heartbeat at 3 weeks. (I learned that at the “Bodies” exhibit).
It was learning about that current science on fetal development that first shook my strong pro-choice beliefs. (I’m now where most Americans are: not advocating overturning Roe v. Wade, but in favor of limitations on abortion).
Exactly. I am not completely in favor of overturning Roe v. Wade, however, there needs to be some serious intervention and PREVENTION. There are situations, either medical or criminal, that merit this procedure, then I can agree. However, when it is simply for the convenience of the mother to be….well, I have a problem with that.
Another key focus was on how to help women get health insurance if they wanted to keep the baby and finding parents to adopt the child if they wanted that option.
But as a person who cares about women’s rights, I would be enormously pleased if the people who claim to be “pro-choice” would embrace a wider array of choices for women dealing with unwanted pregnancies, rather than trying to bully any organization offering abortion alternatives out of existence.
