Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, the most pro-abortion governor in the country, is President Obama’s fresh pick to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the largest of the government agencies and the one that handles most of the country’s social-conservative policy issues.
Like President Obama, Ms. Sebelius has adopted pro-life rhetoric in an attempt to mask her radical stance on abortion. Faced with a choice between the right to abortion and other women’s rights, Sebelius generally supported the women’s rights position, thus appearing to reject the pro-abortion position. When Sebelius vetoed legislation requiring disclosure of information from late-term abortion providers, her colleagues suggested she was concerned the legislation would violate women’s medical privacy. She signed a bill, commonly known as “Alexa’s Law,” that would criminalize fetal violence; also signed a bill requiring abortion providers to provide fetal tissue samples when the mother is under 14 years elderly. Kansas Republicans explain that the governor only signed the bill because it was part of a mega-package that included other legislation she supported.
Her background is crucial because at HHS, Governor Sebelius would be responsible for health care issues and would influence federal and state policy on a wide variety of controversial issues, including abortion policy, parental notification, conscience rights protections, and the destruction of stem cell research embryos. She took an extreme position on preventing third-term abortion and protecting those born during life from abortion. Sebelius vetoed “any legislation targeting a woman’s ‘right to know’ about abortion, including legislation on statistical reporting and requiring women to review ultrasounds before undergoing the procedure.” Additionally, Sebelius received the endorsement of Planned Parenthood, which conducted donation campaigns for her election.
As noted by Clarke D. Forsythe and Denise M. Burke, two distinguished attorneys with Americans United for Life, Governor Sebelius vetoed a late-term abortion measure requiring medical reasons for late-term abortions by requiring abortion providers to report the diagnosis that required late-term abortions and allowed for injunctions against illegal late-term abortions or additional legal support for prosecuting violations of late-term abortion bans. Last year, she vetoed major provisions that tightened parental notification rules. She previously cold-bloodedly vetoed legislation that would have strengthened accountability for abortion, including cleaning up shockingly unsanitary conditions at Kansas abortion clinics.
Forsythe and Burke also note the governor’s close relationship with late-term abortionist George Tiller. Tiller, along with 25 friends and employees and Nebraska abortionist LeRoy Carhart, were honored at the Governor’s Mansion in April 2007. John Hanna, an Associated Press reporter, documented the event in photos. Tiller was charged with 19 counts of illegally performing late-term abortions, and his trial was set for March 16. Sebelius appointed one of Tiller’s outspoken supporters, John Carmichael, to the Human Rights Commission, although she later quietly withdrew the nomination. She appointed Howard Ellis, another abortionist, to the Kansas Board of Healing Arts, even though he chose to give up his medical license in Missouri to avoid facing disciplinary charges. Ellis resigned and was soon charged with trying to convince a doctor to falsify records.
Mrs. Sebelius is also the governor’s daughter; her father, John Gilligan, is a former governor of Ohio. Sebelius, a popular Democrat in a longtime red state, has the support of both Kansas GOP senators Pat Roberts and Sam Brownback. She will have the support of Democrats in Congress, as well as two senators from Maine, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, who are supporters of abortion.
No doubt both the President and Mrs. Sebelius will tout the fact that the abortion rate in Kansas has dropped during her term, and that it has dropped more than the national rate in that time (dropping from 14% in Kansas to 9% nationwide). . As I mentioned earlier, Governor Sebelius has spoken on pro-life issues and signed some pro-life legislation as Governor of Kansas, but her background is overwhelmingly pro-abortion; as she stated in the Wichita Eagle, “certain inalienable rights do not apply in utero.” Of course, President Obama will choose an HHS secretary who supports his position, but one has to wonder why he would appoint additional HHS nominees with such controversial abortion records. With Sebelius, he will have a fight on his hands that will give the pro-life movement good experience and perhaps a robust victory before the battle for its first Supreme Court nominee in just three years.
