Sen. Kennedy on Biden's HHS pick: Becerra is going to have a tough confirmation
Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., weighs in on President-elect Biden tapping Xavier Becerra as HHS Secretary, the latest on Trump's election legal challenges and Pelosi's handling of coronavirus stimulus on 'Fox & Friends.'
While Big Tech works to suppress principled pro-life criticism, the Biden-Harris administration is working to expand abortion on demand, paid for by U.S. taxpayers.
Key to implementing and enforcing this radical agenda are Cabinet nominees like Xavier Becerra, a pro-abortion activist in line to head the influential Department of Health and Human Services. Without intervention from policymakers, Becerra seems headed toward a quick confirmation – and will be left holding the reins of one of the nation’s most influential agencies.
Becerra’s extreme record goes back three decades, when as a freshman congressman he voted against banning grisly partial-birth abortions and in favor of forced taxpayer funding of abortion – an extreme position even among his Democratic colleagues at the time. More recently, he voted against ensuring medical care for babies born alive after a failed abortion attempt.
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As attorney general of California, he’s proven to be aggressively hostile to unborn children and the rights of those who advocate for them.
Picking up where his predecessor Kamala Harris left off, Becerra tried to silence citizen journalists working to expose Planned Parenthood’s role in the harvest and sale of baby body parts. Even the L.A. Times was unsettled when he pinned David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt with 15 felony charges, making them the first undercover journalists ever prosecuted under California’s video recording laws.
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When Becerra wasn’t prosecuting pro-life journalists, he was trying to force California’s pro-life pregnancy centers to advertise and refer for abortion.
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Though research has affirmed the vital services that pro-life pregnancy centers provide at virtually no charge to millions of women and men each year, Beccera made it his mission to come after them. He litigated California’s anti-pregnancy center law all the way to the Supreme Court and lost, wasting precious time and resources that could have been devoted to helping families in need.
And, like the Obama administration, Becerra sued the Little Sisters of the Poor to force them to provide abortion-inducing drugs in their health plans. Again, he lost.
Ironically, Becerra’s extremism has the potential to unify Republicans and moderate Democrats – in opposition. A recent Marist poll found that a strong majority of Americans (58%) – including 65% of Independents and nearly one-third of Democrats – oppose using taxpayer money to fund abortions domestically. An even more overwhelming 77% of Americans oppose using taxpayer dollars to promote abortion overseas, including 55% of Democrats, 85% of Independents, and nearly two thirds of pro-choice respondents.
No one who has shown such disregard for religious liberty and conscience should wield such influence over Americans’ daily lives.
Simply put, the majority of Americans want their government to use their resources to respect conscience and protect life – an imminently reasonable expectation. Becerra’s confirmation would represent just the opposite.
No one who has spent his career targeting Americans for their constitutionally protected speech should be confirmed for a Cabinet position.
No one who has shown such disregard for religious liberty and conscience should wield such influence over Americans’ daily lives.
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And no one who poses such a distinct danger to vulnerable unborn babies and mothers should be put in charge of HHS’ mission to protect Americans’ health – not during a pandemic when our urgent focus is rightly on saving lives, or ever.
We strongly oppose this nomination, and we urge all members of the Senate to vote against it.
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Marjorie Dannenfelser is president of the national pro-life group Susan B. Anthony List and the author of "Life is Winning: Inside the Fight for Unborn Children and their Mothers."
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