On Thursday, a spokesperson for Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) told CNN and National Review that the moderate Democrat who has shown true fortitude in standing up to the radicals in his party will not be holding his own on one of President Joe Biden’s worst nominees. Manchin will support the nomination of Attorney General Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.) for secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS).
This makes Becerra’s confirmation virtually certain, and that is a crying shame for America, on many levels.
First, Becerra has no medical experience and “little health policy experience.” This alone should raise alarm bells in a nominee for a key health position during a global pandemic.
Yet Becerra is also an abortion radical. In 2003, when Becerra served in the House of Representatives, he voted against the federal ban on partial-birth abortion. During his confirmation hearing, Becerra refused to name a single abortion restriction he supported, including a ban on sex-selective abortion.
Biden's HHS nominee Xavier Becerra refuses to condemn partial birth abortion and abortion based on sex or disabilityhttps://t.co/UIIIh2okoJ pic.twitter.com/Bi6bB8rCNe
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) February 24, 2021
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Becerra doesn’t just support abortion — he abused his office to silence pro-life critics of Planned Parenthood.
In 2014, David Daleiden and the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) released a slew of undercover sting videos showing Planned Parenthood staff admitting to selling aborted baby body parts for profit, with one even joking about buying a Lamborghini with the profits. Planned Parenthood hired the firm Fusion GPS, now notorious for assembling the Trump-Russia dossier, to obscure the facts and suggest the videos were deceptively edited.
Kamala Harris, now Biden’s vice president, was serving as California’s attorney general at the time. In 2016, her office searched Daleiden’s home, seizing his video footage and preparing a legal case against him. In 2017, Harris’s successor, Xavier Becerra (another politician bankrolled by Planned Parenthood), filed 15 felony charges against CMP and Daleiden.
Peter Breen, special counsel at the Thomas More Society, briefed PJ Media on the ongoing case last July. He argued that Daleiden’s film was taken in “entirely public places.”
“I could point you to undercover investigations that are being shown on the evening news in Los Angeles. Under the standard they are applying to David, those would be felonies,” the lawyer argued. “The other reporters are being lauded for their brave investigative techniques, but David is being prosecuted.”
“I would say this is an abuse of the criminal process,” Breen told PJ Media.
Pro-choice law professors have defended Daleiden’s right to engage in undercover journalism.
Becerra also vigorously defended a California law that mandated pregnancy resource centers (PRCs), most of which are pro-life, must advertise abortion on placards. In National Institute for Life Advocates (NIFLA) v. Becerra (2018), the Supreme Court struck down the law, defending the pregnancy centers’ free speech.
When the Trump administration carved out a religious freedom exemption to avoid forcing the Little Sisters of the Poor to pay for contraception under the Obamacare mandate, Becerra sued the Trump administration, attempting to make sure the federal government kept forcing the nuns to violate their consciences.
Biden Taps Radical Planned Parenthood Lackey Xavier Becerra to Head HHS
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Becerra defended California’s sweeping bans on houses of worship.
Becerra also sued the Trump HHS after the agency struck down an Obama administration rule redefining “sex” in federal discrimination law. The Obama rule twisted the meaning of the term in order to force health care providers to encourage experimental transgender “treatments” like cross-sex hormones and surgery. The Trump administration restored the biological meaning of “sex,” but Becerra sued to force transgender ideology on the federal government.
Becerra visited China in 1997 as a congressman, and he defended the Chinese Communist Party against allegations of widespread human rights abuses. “We have two very different cultures, and we have two very different perspectives on the world … that’s not to say one perspective is better than the other,” he said at the time.
He also visited Cuba and met with Fidel Castro in 1996, just weeks before he was elected chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.
Becerra has openly supported a government takeover of health care.
Xavier Becerra is not a health care professional — he is a hardcore pro-abortion ideologue who abused the power of his office to prosecute pro-life journalists and to force pro-life pregnancy centers to advertise for abortion. Manchin should seriously reconsider his support for Becerra.
If Becerra takes the helm at HHS, the Obamacare mandates are not only likely to return but they are likely to get ratcheted up to 11. While President Donald Trump created a new office protecting religious freedom at HHS, Becerra would gut conscience rights in the health care arena.
Tyler O’Neil is the author of Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Follow him on Twitter at @Tyler2ONeil.
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