WASHINGTON (AP) – President Joe Biden’s choice of health secretary is suffering with Republicans for their actions in favor of the right to abortion. They want to define it – and the new government – as outside the mainstream.
The appointment of Xavier Becerra faces an important vote on Wednesday in the Senate finance committee. It is also a test for national groups that oppose abortion, trying to deny a president who defends abortion rights his choice to head the Department of Health and Human Services.
Becerra is paying a price to defend, as California’s attorney general, some of the country’s most liberal laws and policies on the right to abortion.
“It shows that California’s abortion policies are progressive enough that being associated with them is something that anti-abortion lawmakers want to disqualify for a position in the Cabinet,” said Mary Ziegler, a law professor at Florida State University who specializes in history. reproduction.
Nationally, the issue of abortion appears to be changing. Lawmakers in 19 state legislatures have submitted nearly 50 bills this year to ban most or all abortions, according to the non-partisan Guttmacher Institute. In South Carolina, Republican Governor Henry McMaster signed a measure banning most abortions, although it was almost immediately suspended by a federal judge.
Opponents of abortion hope that litigation over a state law will reach the Supreme Court, now clearly tilted to the right. It can serve as a vehicle to overturn the Roe v decision. Wade, who legalized abortion. However, despite the increase in state activity, the underlying political reality is complicated.
During the 2020 election, about 6 out of 10 voters said abortion should be legal in most or all cases, according to VoteCast, an in-depth US voter survey conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago for Associated Press. Approximately the same percentage of Republicans said that abortion should normally be legal, the survey showed.
Becerra, 63, has been a credible Democratic vote for abortion rights for more than 20 years representing a Los Angeles area district in the United States House. But he was not a main voice. His problems were immigration, access to health care and education.
Perceptions changed after Becerra was appointed California’s attorney general in 2017. He sued the Trump government for its abortion restrictions, although his office says that only four of 124 Becerra lawsuits filed against the previous government dealt with abortion, control of birth or rights of conscience – key issues for religious conservatives. Becerra went to the United States Supreme Court to defend a California law that required crisis pregnancy centers to provide information about abortion – and he lost.
His legal defense angered opponents of abortion. “What I see is that he is getting involved in a lot of abortion cases,” said Kristen Day, executive director of Democrats for Life of America. “It has just become part of its foundation. Yes, the laws were bad in California, but he has an abortion agenda. ”
Senator John Thune, RS.D., echoed these views. “It seems that, as attorney general, you have spent an excessive amount of time and effort suing pro-life organizations,” he said, questioning Becerra recently. “If confirmed, how do you guarantee us? Because I think that the majority of the American people would not want their Secretary of Health and Human Services to focus or focus on expanding abortion when we have all these public health problems to deal with. “
“I understand that Americans have different deep beliefs on this specific issue,” replied Becerra, adding that “it is my job to defend the rights of my state”. He also pointed out that his wife, Dr. Carolina Reyes, is a recognized obstetrician for caring for women with high-risk pregnancies.
Finance Committee Chairman, Senator Ron Wyden, D-Ore., Has accused some Republican senators of ignoring the coronavirus pandemic “to spread deceptive or proven false attacks on Attorney General Becerra’s record, defending access to reproductive health care “.
There doesn’t seem to be much room for dialogue. “It is really difficult to see where he will find, or be willing to find, any common ground with the pro-life,” said Carol Tobias, chairman of the National Committee for the Right to Life, about Becerra.
Senator Steve Daines, R-Mont., Told Becerra that “I have serious concerns about the radical views you have had in the past on the issue of abortion.” And Senator Ben Sasse, R-Neb., Accused Becerra of “aiming at religious freedom” when he sued the Trump administration for its rules, giving employers with religious or moral objections more leeway to choose not to cover birth control. .
How far the Biden government will go in expanding access to abortion is questionable. Democrats in Congress do not appear to have votes to overturn the Hyde Amendment, the term for a series of federal laws that prohibit taxpayer financing of abortion, except in cases of rape or incest or to save a woman’s life. Biden, who supported Hyde’s restrictions throughout his career in Congress, changed his position as a candidate for president. Becerra told the senators that he will follow the law.
Opponents of abortion rights say they do not trust Becerra. “He has accredited himself as an abortionist absolutist – he’s just who he is,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony List, who supports women seeking anti-abortion positions.
But Becerra was supported by a prominent Catholic, Sister Carol Keehan, a retired head of the United States Catholic Health Association. She disagrees with her support for abortion rights, but finds common ground elsewhere.
“He wants to ensure that people have access to health care in this country,” said Keehan. “It turns out that I believe that the way to reduce abortion is by giving people decent health care.”
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Beaumont reported from Des Moines, Iowa.