Xavier Becerra’s lack of health care experience, coupled with his radical pro-abortion record, has U.S. Senate leaders concerned about approving him as secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
President-elect Joe Biden chose Becerra, the attorney general of California, to lead the HHS earlier this month, but his confirmation is not certain.
Republicans hold a narrow majority in the U.S. Senate, and pro-life and conservative groups are urging senators to vote against his confirmation. The vote likely will come down to a few moderate Republican and Democrat senators, including Republican U.S. Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia.
NBC News reports Collins is one of a number of Republican senators who has voiced concerns about Becerra. Collins is a moderate who supports abortions.
“I was surprised that it wasn’t an individual who had a health care background, but I truly don’t know him,” Collins said recently.
U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, another Republican and a medical doctor by profession, also expressed skepticism about Becerra’s medical experience, saying, “I just don’t know what expertise he has in health care.”
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Becerra, a lawyer and former congressman, would be tasked with huge health care problems, if confirmed. These include the coronavirus pandemic and vaccinations, continued problems with the Affordable Care Act and leftists’ push for socialized medicine. A close ally of the abortion industry, he also would lead the agency as abortion groups lobby for taxpayer-funded abortions through Medicaid and the de-regulation of abortion drugs.
Though Becerra, like Biden, claims to be Catholic, his record involving the lives of unborn babies and those who work to protect them is terrible. As head of HHS, Becerra would have even more power to advance a radical anti-life agenda, including expanding late-term abortions on babies capable of feeling pain and forcing taxpayers to pay for their deaths.
U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas, said these pro-abortion actions are the reason why he will vote against the Democrat leader.
“Xavier Becerra spent his career attacking pro-life Americans and tried to force crisis pregnancy centers to advertise abortions,” Cotton wrote on Twitter. “I’ll be voting no, and Becerra should be rejected by the Senate.”
Republican U.S. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas pointed out that many of Biden’s nominees are “pretty radical,” while U.S. Sen. Mike Braun of Indiana said he plans to question Becerra about “his political donations from insurance companies and his support for abortions and Medicare for All,” according to NBC News.
Last week, more than 40 pro-life organizations urged the U.S. Senate to vote “no” on Becerra in an open letter.
“There is a reason that Planned Parenthood and their abortion allies believe they have been ‘wildly successful’ with a possible Becerra pick,” said Students for Life Action president Kristan Hawkins, one of the groups that organized the letter. “They don’t care that he has no healthcare experience, because as a lawyer, he has used the law against everyone from nuns to pregnancy care centers to the FDA to advance a radical abortion agenda.”
Pro-life leaders described Becerra as “aggressively pro-abortion.” For years, his office has been fighting against a religious exemption from Obamacare that President Donald Trump put in place to protect the Little Sisters of the Poor, a charity of nuns that serves the poor and elderly, and other religious employers.
Becerra’s pro-abortion politics extend to pregnancy resource centers as well. In 2018, he defended a California law that forced pro-life pregnancy centers to post signs advertising abortions; however, he lost at the U.S. Supreme Court.
As attorney general, Becerra also challenged a Trump rule that defunded Planned Parenthood of about $60 million in Title X funds and, notoriously, took up the prosecution of pro-life journalists David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt who exposed Planned Parenthood’s baby body parts trade.
Years earlier, while serving in Congress, Becerra developed a 100-percent pro-abortion voting record from Planned Parenthood and NARAL, PJ Media reports. These actions include voting against a ban on partial-birth abortion and for taxpayer-funded abortions.
Becerra’s radical positions are vastly out of touch with most Americans. National polling consistently shows Americans — including many who are “pro-choice” on abortion — oppose late-term abortions and do not want their tax dollars to pay for them.
