Exposed! Kagan's partial-birth abortion scheme

The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology is well-known in pro-life circles to be radically proabortion.

For instance, ACOG supports the most heinous of all abortion practices, partial-birth abortion. When in 2007 the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the partial-birth abortion ban of 2003, ACOG released an indignant statement, which read, in part:

"Today's decision … is shameful and incomprehensible to those of us who have dedicated our lives to caring for women," said Douglas W. Laube, M.D., M.Ed., ACOG president. "It leaves no doubt that women's health in America is perceived as being of little consequence.

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"... The Supreme Court's action today, though stunning, in many ways isn't surprising given the current culture in which scientific knowledge frequently takes a back seat to subjective opinion," he added.

How admirable of ACOG to stand on the principle of "scientific knowledge" in the face of "subjective opinion," which overwhelmingly thought sucking out the brains and collapsing the skulls of almost-delivered late-term babies was gross.

But as it turns out, ACOG is the grandest of frauds.

It has just come to light through the process of U.S. Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan's confirmation hearing that in 1996 ACOG let the Clinton White House, via then–associate counsel Elena Kagan, write its medical opinion of the partial-birth abortion procedure.

Documents released from the Clinton library show ACOG inexplicably (because no one from ACOG will now respond to press inquiries for an explanation) submitted its draft unhelpful opinion of partial-birth abortion for review to the White House in the face of a ban being proposed in Congress and then changed it to suit Clinton's proabortion agenda.

The statement ACOG originally planned to release read:

However, a select panel convened by ACOG could identify no circumstances under which this procedure, as defined above, would be the only option to save the life or preserve the health of the woman. Notwithstanding this conclusion, ACOG strongly believes that decisions about medical treatment must be made by the doctor, in consultation with the patient, based upon the woman's particular circumstances.

In other words, ACOG found no exceptional reason for the existence of partial-birth abortion. Legalized abortion could get along just fine without it. Nevertheless, in ACOG's curious opinion, it should remain legal.

But when Kagan got wind of ACOG's draft, she wrote in a White House memo it "would be disaster – not the less so (in fact, the more so) because ACOG continues to oppose the legislation."

What came next shocked even me to learn, first that Kagan presumed she had standing to suggest a revision to ACOG, and then that ACOG accepted a revision of its medical opinion from a political hack.

But that's what happened. Here are the edits Kagan gave ACOG (click to enlarge):

Kagan's suggestion on the key point of contention read:

An intact D & X, however, may be the best or most appropriate procedure in a particular circumstance to save the life or preserve the health of a woman ...

The final version of ACOG's January 1997 statement read (bold highlight theirs – accentuating what Kagan accentuated):

A select panel convened by ACOG could identify no circumstances under which this procedure, as defined above, would be the only option to save the life or preserve the health of the woman. An intact D & X, however, may be the best or most appropriate procedure in a particular circumstance to save the life or preserve the health of a woman, and only the doctor, in consultation with the patient, based upon the woman's particular circumstances can make this decision.

ACOG used Kagan's language verbatim.

As former Justice Department lawyer Shannen Coffin pointed out in a National Review Online column yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court cited ACOG's opinion when striking Nebraska's partial-birth abortion ban in 2000, and U.S. District Court Judge Richard Kopf also cited it when he, as well as two other judges, enjoined the 2003 federal ban.

So it can be said Elena Kagan was largely responsible for keeping partial-birth abortion on the books 10 years beyond what it would have had the courts ruled based on uncorrupted medical opinion.

This is a scandal. For all its pomp, ACOG is unequivocally corrupt.

And Elena Kagan? She has demonstrated she doesn't let reason, facts, medicine or science stand in the way of her proabortion ideology.

And this fanatic is on track to be our next U.S. Supreme Court justice, unless bold Republican senators can lead the way in successfully challenging her.