The U.S. Senate advanced the confirmation of pro-abortion radical Xavier Becerra as health secretary Wednesday, voting to end debate and move forward with a final vote.
The 50-49 vote to invoke cloture was largely along party lines. U.S. Sens. Bob Casey Jr., of Pennsylvania, and Joe Manchin, of West Virginia, two Democrats who profess to be pro-life, voted with their party to advance Becerra’s confirmation. U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, of Maine, a pro-abortion Republican, split from her party and also voted yes.
A final vote likely will happen later this week.
Becerra, the attorney general of California, is President Joe Biden’s choice to run the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. A career politician with no medical background, he has a radical pro-abortion record that includes prosecuting the undercover journalists, supporting partial-birth abortions and attempting to force nuns who serve the poor and elderly to fund abortions.
Republican and Democrat pro-life leaders have been speaking out against Becerra’s confirmation because of his radical pro-abortion record.
“Mr. Becerra’s confirmation would be divisive and a step in the wrong direction,” more than 60 pro-life leaders told U.S. Senators in February. He “has proven himself to be an enemy of the health of women and the unborn. He cannot be entrusted with our national health programs and policies and is not qualified to serve as Secretary of Health and Human Services.”
They said Becerra has abused his powerful position “to target pro-life health centers and journalists,” and he cannot be trusted.
“Mr. Becerra is an enemy to every pro-life policy and law and has demonstrated complete disregard for the religious and moral convictions of those opposed to the brutal act of abortion,” they wrote. “His radical record in public office as California’s Attorney General and member of Congress leads our organizations to ask you to reject Mr. Becerra’s nomination.”
Pro-life Democrat leaders also are urging the U.S. Senate to reject Becerra, noting his lack of medical experience and his extremist position on abortion.
“We need someone to lead HHS who values the fullness of life and won’t actively work to advocate to expand the opportunity to end it through abortion,” said Kristen Day, executive director of Democrats For Life of America, in a statement. “The nomination of a state AG with little medical experience only serves the purpose of appeasing the abortion cultural warriors in the Democratic Party. This runs counter to the Biden Administration’s stated goal of healing divisions in the United States.”
Though Becerra claims to be Catholic, his record involving 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.
Becerra’s record as a former congressman and attorney general do not bode well for the future of religious freedom, free speech or unborn babies’ right to life.
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. And he challenged a Trump administration rule that defunded Planned Parenthood of about $60 million in Title X funds.
Becerra also sued the federal government in 2017 because President Donald Trump has instituted a pro-life rule to protect Christian charities from having to pay for forms of contraception that may cause abortions through Obamacare. The Little Sisters of the Poor, a charity of nuns who serve the poor and elderly, is involved in defending the rule against Becerra.
He also is prosecuting the undercover journalists who exposed Planned Parenthood’s aborted baby body parts trade. If convicted, the journalists could go to jail.
ACTION ALERT: Contact U.S. Senators and urge them to vote NO on Becerra’s nomination.
