by JivinJ, host of the blog, JivinJehoshaphat

The documents, buried in Marshall’s papers in the Library of Congress, show Kagan standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the liberal left, at a time when the Rehnquist Supreme Court was moving to the conservative right….

On abortion, Kagan wrote a memo in a case involving a prisoner who wanted the state to pay for her to have the procedure. Kagan expressed concern to Marshall that the conservative-leaning Court would use the case to rule against the woman – and possibly undo precedents protecting a woman’s right to abortion.
“This case is likely to become the vehicle that this court uses to create some very bad law on abortion and/or prisoners’ rights,” she wrote in the 1988 memo.

WI law prohibits state agencies from paying doctors or medical facilities for performing abortions. The University of WI Hospital and Clinics Authority pays medical residents specializing in gynecology to train at Planned Parenthood of WI, where they can choose to undertake abortion training.
The Alliance Defense Fund, an AZ-based group of Christian lawyers, sent a letter in April on behalf of Pro-Life Wisconsin to Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen alleging UWHCA has paid nearly $60k over the last 3 years to cover residents’ training at PP. The group claims the payments violate the law and asked Van Hollen for a formal opinion.

[Kagan photo via CBSNews.com]