Capitalist
Jeffersonian Liberal
- May 22, 2010
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(NRO)- It seems that the most important statement in the famous position paper of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologistsa 1996 document that was central to the case of partial-birth-abortion defenders for the subsequent decade and played a major role in a number of court cases and political battleswas drafted not by an impartial committee of physicians, as both ACOG and the pro-abortion lobby claimed for years, but by Elena Kagan, who was then the deputy assistant to the president for domestic policy.
Kagan saw ACOGs original paper, which did not include the claim that partial-birth abortion may be the best or most appropriate procedure in a particular circumstance to save the life or preserve the health of a woman, but, on the contrary, said that ACOG could identify no circumstances under which this procedure . . . would be the only option to save the life or preserve the health of the woman.
She wrote a memo to two White House colleagues noting that this language would be a disaster for the cause of partial-birth abortion, and she then set out to do something about it. In notes released by the White House it now looks as though Kagan herselfa senior Clinton White House staffer with no medical backgroundproposed the may be the best or most appropriate procedure in a particular circumstance to save the life or preserve the health of a woman language, and sent it to ACOG, which then included that language in its final statement.
Whats described in these memos is easily the most serious and flagrant violation of the boundary between scientific expertise and politics I have ever encountered. A White House official formulating a substantive policy position for a supposedly impartial physicians group, and a position at odds with what that groups own policy committee had actually concluded? You have to wonder where all the defenders of sciencethose intrepid guardians of the freedom of inquiry who throughout the Bush years wailed about the supposed politicization of scientific research and expertiseare now. If the Bush White House (in which I served as a domestic policy staffer) had ever done anything even close to this it would have been declared a monumental scandal, and rightly so.
Rest here>>>
Kagan saw ACOGs original paper, which did not include the claim that partial-birth abortion may be the best or most appropriate procedure in a particular circumstance to save the life or preserve the health of a woman, but, on the contrary, said that ACOG could identify no circumstances under which this procedure . . . would be the only option to save the life or preserve the health of the woman.
She wrote a memo to two White House colleagues noting that this language would be a disaster for the cause of partial-birth abortion, and she then set out to do something about it. In notes released by the White House it now looks as though Kagan herselfa senior Clinton White House staffer with no medical backgroundproposed the may be the best or most appropriate procedure in a particular circumstance to save the life or preserve the health of a woman language, and sent it to ACOG, which then included that language in its final statement.
Whats described in these memos is easily the most serious and flagrant violation of the boundary between scientific expertise and politics I have ever encountered. A White House official formulating a substantive policy position for a supposedly impartial physicians group, and a position at odds with what that groups own policy committee had actually concluded? You have to wonder where all the defenders of sciencethose intrepid guardians of the freedom of inquiry who throughout the Bush years wailed about the supposed politicization of scientific research and expertiseare now. If the Bush White House (in which I served as a domestic policy staffer) had ever done anything even close to this it would have been declared a monumental scandal, and rightly so.
Rest here>>>
