Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop is urging a no vote on Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan....
Koop accuses Kagan of lobbying successfully to change the language of a 1997 statement by American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists on a controversial procedure that critics call "partial-birth abortion."
Koop calls "unethical" and "disgraceful" Kagan's effort to convince the medical group to describe the procedure as medically necessary.
"She was willing to replace a medical statement with a political statement that was not supported by any existing medical data."
~USA Today, July 19
Comments:
Wooo hooo! Someone dares to tell the truth there! I very much hope she doesn't get to be confirmed!!!!
Posted by: Vita at July 19, 2010 9:17 AMWell done for CEK, but this article has its sucktacular moments.
"In the letter, Koop accuses Kagan of lobbying successfully to change the language of a 1997 statement by American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists on a controversial procedure that critics call "partial-birth abortion.""
What do its supporters call it?
"Koop, who is 93 but looks decades younger as you can see from the above photo, taken at a New York film debut earlier this year, is a longtime opponent of abortion but also has a record of insisting on scientific integrity"
BUT ALSO HAS A RECORD OF INSISTING ON SCIENTIFIC INTEGRITY! Because that's, like, so rare for opponents of abortion...
Posted by: Marauder at July 19, 2010 10:22 AMI'm sorry, but if there is any fault here, it is the fault of ACOG. If they agreed with Kagan's edits, no problem here at all. The statement remained one that reflected their position. If they disagreed with her edits, they should have refused to sign off on them. I hardly see a scandal here.
Posted by: Hal at July 19, 2010 6:39 PMHal,
She knew that she wasn't a medical expert and besides that, shouldn't an attorney distance herself from any appearance of impropriety?
Posted by: Janet at July 19, 2010 9:47 PMA woman who has carried a child for over 6 months hasn't spent the whole time wanting an abortion, or she would have gotten one sooner. A late term abortion is the result of some personal or psychological crisis. It is the anxiety that needs to be treated. Killing children is not, nor will it ever be, treatment for anxiety. In a late term situation, if the mother's life is in danger, the safest thing to do is deliver the child, not kill it. Hal, children died in multiple states over the course of years based on Kagan's handwritten changes. They died for politics. They are political martyrs. And you, Hal, condone it. I do see a problem with that.
Posted by: ninek at July 20, 2010 8:34 AMNinek, the courts did not decide what they did based on what Kagan suggested, they decided based on what ACOG submitted. Your beef with with ACOG. Kagan did what any lawyer would do, suggest stronger language that would likely be more persuasive to the courts. If that language was not accurate, ACOG should have rejected her suggestions.
Posted by: Hal at July 20, 2010 1:42 PM