With Smoking Gun: Elena Kagan Fudged Study to Justify Partial Birth Abortion in Court

Partialo birth abortion is not an inch short of barbarism. A baby is pulled form the womb feet first, and a person without conscience stabs the back of the baby's head whil eits feet and hands are flailing around severing the spinal cord and killing the baby. The brain is sucked out and the baby flushed down the toilet or thrown in a dumpster.

Elena Kagan defended this crime against humanity. In fact, she fudged scientific studies to say the opposite of what they originally said. From Powerline (via memeorandum): A Smoking Gun in the Kagan Case?

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.

Here is an image of the note she hand wrote and faxed that is identical to the language that ended up in the report:

Powerline continues:

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, where it then became one of the greatest evidentiary hurdles faced by Justice Department lawyers (of whom I was one) in defending the federal ban. (Kagan's role was never disclosed to the courts.)

And to think this is the person that Obama wants to sit on the SCOTUS? Well, for Obama of course. He himself has defended not only partial birth abortion but outright infanticide. 4 times in fact. I've mentioned this many times in this blog but it is always worth repeating that the most viciously pro-abort zealot to ever sit in the Oval Office did the following:

• signed an Executive Order opening up taxpayer funding for destroying embryos for research, even though the effort is moot (more here)
• directed the Department of HHS to overturn regulations that protected medical professionals from being forced to perform or refer for abortion (more here)
• second act in office was to authorize US dollars to fund abortions oversees (more here)
• voted against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act (more here and here), thereby outright condoning infanticide (this was before he was elected President, but something that no one should forget). Not just once but 4 times!
• signed an Executive Order authorizing taxpayer funding for the destruction of human embryos for research and overturned a prior administration EO pressing for forms of stem cell research that wouldn't require embryo destruction. Even though destroying embryos is likely already moot at this point
  
• announced $50 million for the UNFPA, the UN population agency that has been criticized for promoting abortion and working closely with Chinese population control officials who use forced abortions and involuntary sterilizations.
• defunded all abstinence-only education, instead going with contraceptive-only education that is proven not to decrease pregnancy or abortion
• Signed a new budget including taxpayer-funded abortions in Washington D.C.
• Is having the Pentagon stock the morning after pill that prevents implantation of an embryo, which is an abortion in the earliest stages of life 
• Pushed through bribes and threat the ObamaCare bill that bypassed normal Congress procedure. It includes taxpayer abortion funding by subsidizing insurance plans that cover abortions. 

The multiple pro-infanticide votes are the most egregious of the above egregious acts:

And who can forget this ghoulish stump speech where Obama likened babies to STDs and called them a punishment:

"By their fruit you will recognize them." But don't question his faith:

UPDATE: More from the Volokh Conspiracy:

Powerline’s John Hinderaker thinks this is a “smoking gun” and Kagan “has a great deal of explaining to do.”  Glenn Reynolds thinks this is “at least” a scandal for ACOG, if not Kagan herself. If the allegations are true, it’s a clear example of the politicization of science by a Democratic administration (and further evidence that there are no clean hands on science politicization).

...Assuming the allegations are true and do not omit key details, is this really a scandal?   I think it is, but not necessarily for Kagan.  Kagan was a White House staffer, so we would expect her to encourage outside groups to adopt positions that were amenable to Administration policy.  That’s not a scandal.  Encouraging a reputed professional organization to alter its factual claim in an official statement (e.g. whether the relevant procedure was ever the “most appropriate procedure available”) is a closer call, but probably not scandalous when done by a policy staffer for political purposes.  So this could be embarrassing for Kagan, and make abortion a larger issue in her confirmation, but it’s not the sort of thing that will stop her from being confirmed. 

ACOG, on the other hand, comes out looking much worse.  If it actually let a White House rewrite an official statement of the organization on the necessity of a given medical procedure, its credibility will take a hit.  If ACOG categorically opposed any and all legislative impositions, that’s fine.  If it issued a specific statement based upon a White House staffer’s judgment of what was politically expedient, as opposed to what was true about the necessity or advisability of a given procedure, then it perpetrated a fraud and let itself be used for political purposes.

...Shannen Coffin responds at The Corner, and suggests some questions Senators may wish to ask Kagan at her hearing.

Didn't Obama promise to "restore scientific integrity in governmental decision making?" Recently, the American Cancer Society has criticized a report from the President Obama Cancer Panel for grossly exaggerating the cancer risks associated with environmental exposure to various industrial, agricultural, and even natural chemicals.In his December 2008 weekly address, Obama said that science should never be subordinated by politics:

Everything he says is a lie, and what he wants is the direct opposite.