Pro-life leaders and scholars are warning against the nomination of California’s attorney general to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
In December, then-President-elect Joe Biden tapped Xavier Becerra—former congressman and current attorney general of California—to be the next health secretary. Next week, Becerra will appear before two U.S. Senate committees at his confirmation hearings. The committees will then either vote to send his confirmation to the entire Senate favorably, unfavorably, or without its recommendation, or may not take action on his confirmation.
Pro-life groups and former administration officials point to Becerra’s record on abortion as “radical,” saying that in California he aggressively prosecuted pro-life activists, pushed to liberalize state and federal abortion regulations, and defended state laws that forced Catholic nuns and pregnancy centers to provide coverage for, and refer for, abortions.
Scholar Ryan Anderson, president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, said that Becerra is an “ideological culture warrior” who would only serve to heighten current political polarization.
Roger Severino, former head of the Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights and senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, said that Becerra’s confirmation to lead the agency would be an “astounding conflict of interest”—given that Severino’s office twice found Becerra’s in violation of federal conscience laws.
In Jan., 2020, Severino’s office determined that California had violated federal law in forcing Catholic and pro-life groups to cover abortions in their health plans. After the office gave Becerra 30 days to comply with federal conscience protections, Becerra refused.
In December, the Trump administration announced that HHS would withhold $200 million in Medicaid funds to California, for refusing to comply with the law. Severino’s office in 2019 found that Becerra previously had violated the law in forcing California pregnancy centers to advertise for abortions.
Becerra “wants to impose California’s Covid-19 failures and abortion extremism on the rest of the nation,” Severino said on Thursday.
A coalition of conservative groups—including CatholicVote and the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List—are launching a media and grassroots campaign against Becerra’s confirmation as well as Vanita Gupta’s confirmation as associate attorney general.
“The choice of Becerra for HHS was a total 180 from the talk of ‘unity’ surrounding the inauguration,” stated Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List. “He’s as extreme as they come on abortion.”
On Wednesday, the chair of the Senate Pro-Life Caucus said Becerra was “radical” in using the power of the state to prosecute pro-life groups.
Throughout his career in California, Becerra has been “attacking” pro-life nuns and pro-life crisis pregnancy clinics “with radical, radical efforts,” Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) said at an online panel opposing Becerra’s confirmation.
Becerra’s previous opposition to laws protecting infant survivors of abortion—while he was a congressman—“is just chilling for all of us,” Daines said, “but that is who will lead the HHS Department.”
As attorney general of California, Becerra repeatedly defended the state’s pro-abortion laws while also prosecuting pro-life activists. He also led other state attorneys general in fighting state abortion restrictions in court.
Becerra defended the state’s Reproductive FACT Act, a law passed in 2015 before his tenure that forced crisis pregnancy centers to advertise where clients could get abortions. The court battles over the law reached the Supreme Court, which ruled in 2018 that the law violated the free speech rights of pregnancy centers.
He continued the state’s prosecution of pro-life activist David Daleiden, for his 2015 undercover videos claiming that Planned Parenthood unlawfully profited from the fetal tissue of aborted babies. The previous attorney general, current Vice President Kamala Harris, initiated the prosecution of Daleiden.
Becerra defended the state’s 2014 mandate which forced even Catholic religious— the Missionary Guadalupanas of the Holy Spirit—to provide abortion coverage in employee health plans. For this action—as well as for the state’s previous enforcement of the Reproductive FACT Act—the HHS Office for Civil Rights issued notices of violation to the state.
Earlier in the pandemic, Becerra advocated that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration allow the abortion pill regimen to be prescribed remotely during the coronavirus pandemic.
In 2017, he sued the Trump administration for giving broad religious and moral exemptions from the HHS mandate, including to the Little Sisters of the Poor.
Becerra’s “only healthcare qualifications seem to be his attacks on pro-life medicine, his persecution of the Little Sisters of the Poor, and his defense of an unlawful California abortion mandate,” Anderson noted.
While a congressman, Becerra voted against a partial-birth abortion ban and also opposed a bill that criminalized the killing of an unborn child resulting from an assault on the mother.
“His positions on life and religious liberty make him an outlier,” Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, stated of Becerra.
Sen. Daines said that the adage of “personnel is policy” rings true with Becerra’s nomination.
“When President Joe Biden nominates somebody like Xavier Becerra, it tells you exactly where Joe Biden’s center of gravity is on this issue of abortion, and protecting the most vulnerable in our society,” Daines said.
The above comes from a Feb. 19 story on the site of the Catholic News Agency.
And Big ProLife’s warnings will do nothing to stop it. But they’ll still ask you to increase your donation to help them “fight”.
“Big” pro life?!
Is that a thing now?
Big Josh, you’ve been asked who “Big Prolife” is, but haven’t answered, why?
Can you tell us to whom you’re referring when you say “Big ProLife?”
Big Abortion, Planned Parenthood, is a big supporter of Mr. Becerra.
Am I “Big ProLife” because I’m several pounds heavier than when I started to work to protect babies and their mothers from abortionists?
Whitty and funny.
Here we go again discrediting pro-life group by labeling them “Big Pro-Life”. Again Josh do you work for Planned Parenthood?
It’s not that hard. Big ProLife is any big prolife organization that fundraises Big, to the tune of millions upon millions of dollars. Like Big Oil, Big Tech, Big Media.
I won’t donate to them. All they do is sound the alarm to raise money to pay themselves. Then things worsen, despite what they claim to do, and they sound the alarm asking for even more money. It’s a feedback loop.
Big Josh,
Can you name even one prolife organization that makes “millions upon millions of dollars?”
If you can’t, that’s like me saying Big Josh makes millions upon millions of dollars. Maybe you do and maybe you don’t. However, I’m glad you’re using your income to support babies and their mothers however you choose, locally being a good choice.
How does income to the tune of more than $10 million sound? Big enough? Big enough to be called Big ProLife? I think so.
https://www.taxexemptworld.com/organization.asp?tn=352566
You think I made it up, don’t you? See for yourself.
I looked it up and so what’s your point? They give out millions for pro-life candidates to win elections. And let’s not forget their tv ads and efforts at the state level to restrict abortions and pass legislation to protect the unborn and their mothers. Just because they have money doesn’t mean they don’t help fight the culture of death.
“Like Big Oil, Big Tech, Big Media.”
Ah… like Big Pizza you mean?
I’m starting to believe that Josh is trying to change the subject on this extremist candidate. This is typical of the Left here, change the topic and attack those who are exposing evil.
Catholics who voted for Biden THIS IS ON YOU…………
Unless they voted for Biden in a state whose electoral votes went to Trump. Then their vote for Biden didn’t help elect him, so they are kinda off the hook for their vote because it didn’t contribute to the election outcome.
SJ, so, would an SS soldier who fueled the Fuhrer’s vehicle be “off the hook” if he didn’t fuel the trains to Auschwitz or the war fronts?
Is a terrorist “off the hook” if his explosive device doesn’t kill anyone?
Is the nurse who preps the room and patient and provides all the tools for an abortionist “off the hook” because they didn’t kill the baby?
Wouldn’t they be accomplices or collaborators on something?
And, unless Biden won a state by only one vote, everyone can let themselves “off the hook.” It was the vote of no single person, even in a state that went for Biden, that caused his win.
Is no one then responsible? Or, irresponsible?
BTW, do you feel the need to be let “off the hook?”
If so, thanks be to God, we have the Sacrament of Reconciliation, of which we all need to avail ourselves. Look for a Lenten penance service near you. Maybe I’ll see you in line.
Look, if you fire a bullet at someone intending to murder him but something deflects the bullet, you’re off the hook. Even if someone else fires a bullet at the same person and succeeds in killing him, if your bullet didn’t touch the intended victim then you are not responsible for that person’s death. It’s called an intervening cause. An intervening cause breaks the direct connection between an act and an outcome. Catholics who voted for Biden in states whose electoral votes went to Trump had no causal role in electing Biden. They voted for him, but their votes did not contribute to his election. They are off the hook. That is not the case in California, whose electoral votes went to Biden. Catholics in California who voted for Biden had a causal role in electing him. Catholics in Wyoming who voted for Biden did not.
If you aim a gun at a person and fire intending to murder them, you are not “off the hook” if the bullet is deflected as you would still be charged with attempted murder. Just saying.
@SJ Catholic…if this is their state of their conscience they have no business receiving communion or even calling themselves Catholic
Will our elected officials and those they nominate ever get the message that “murder” (born or unborn) is against both God’s law and man’s law. This clown couldn’t get his way in California and so he took his evil ways to Washington DC where he found an administration of a like mind. Hopefully, this joker’s nomination will fail, but I think not.
What do you mean he couldn’t get his way in California? They have abortion in California, don’t they?
Why is it extremism to enforce the laws on the books? As attorney general, it’s his job to do that.
Gennyfer..Oh so it wasn’t extremism which forced the Nazi soldier to carry out the legal orders of the Fuhrer? The were just doing their job, I guess. Or how about the legality of slavery. Just following orders I guess. It’s only his job also to advance the violence of abortion and to persecute those who uncovered the diabolical selling of baby body parts to the highest bidder. I get it now.
Why must everything devolve into a Nazi comparison?
Because we are heading there with the fascist tactics of the Left. Those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. You think…..
Gennyfer, the question is not whether it’s a law or not; the question is the law moral?. People like Becerra is an example of when the moral law is ripped from civil law and please do not give me the “separation of Church and State” line. You don’t have to be Christian to know that tearing a baby to pieces in the mothers womb is not only immoral but murder.
Xavier Becerra is very well qualified to be Secretary of HHS and will be the first Latino. I support him and think President Biden picked a great choice for this important position. Mr. Becerra will do a great job. The Sisters of the Poor joined the lawsuit after Becerra sued the Trump Administration. He never sued them directly. There is so much other misinformation in your “Abortion Extremist” article. So, I get it. You don’t like his position on abortion but Becerra is a fighter for the vulnerable and the poor. That’s what he was doing as Attorney General in CA. But I don’t hate you for being Pro Life. We just have different opinions. However, I do thank God everyday for his gift of President Joe Biden. He is a good decent honest man, father, grandfather and President who cares about our lives and democracy. Biden has to clean up the former guy’s big mess and he’s the right President for these dark times. He’s Catholic too. And yes, and I agree with Pope Francis and many others about the importance of social justice, poverty, racial equality, human decency, love and kindness in our lives, too.
No one is more vulnerable than the baby in the womb.
The number one social justice issue in the Catholic Church is the right to life.
Racial equality? Look up the statistics on how great a percentage of those aborted are children of color.
Human decency defends the unborn. Love defends the unborn. Kindness defends the unborn.
Well the Guadalupanas, most of whom are Latinas, that Becerra sued certainly disagree with you and him, so do not speak to me of the “first Latino”. That is one “Latino” they could do without. Sounds as if he has sold out his own race, just as some whites and others have sold out their own. So whom have you sold out Kathleen T.????