Via Glenn Greenwald, Elena Kagan supported a ban on late-term abortions as White House adviser in the Clinton administration. Glenn’s link is to an AP article picked up by the New York Times. Given that there is virtually no paper trail to illuminate Kagan’s positions on any of the issues she might be ruling on, it’s hard to know what this might mean for abortion rights, but it’s certainly not a good sign.
At the time, the Republican majority in Congress was trying to pass a ban on all late-term abortions, with no maternal health exception, and Kagan was backing a compromise put forward by Tom Daschle that did contain that exception. The reasoning at the time was that if the White House could get Republicans’ agreement on the compromise, then the Clinton administration could avoid a congressional veto override on the stricter GOP bill.
Abortion rights groups opposed both the Republican ban and the “compromise,” however, and rightly so. Roe v. Wade already prohibits late-term (third-trimester) abortions that are not medically necessary, either because of severe fetal abnormality or because continuing the pregnancy would endanger the life of the mother, and the reality is that there ARE no abortions performed in this country after 24 weeks, and very few even in the second trimester, for any other but serious medical reasons. So the entire concept of a late-term ban is a total red herring with no intention other than to make it harder for women who need abortions to get them.
I have no illusions that this would be an obstacle to Kagan’s confirmation (if anything, it will be a plus with Republicans), but that doesn’t mean it’s not important information.
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