Pro-abortion radical to head Office of Legal Counsel

President Obama’s nominee to head the Office of Legal Counsel, Dawn Johnson, has been reported out of the Senate Judiciary Committee and awaits a vote from the floor. She earlier served as the legal counsel for NARAL, the National Abortion & Reproductive Rights Action League. She was responsible for some of the most outrageous pro-abortion comments on record. The pro-life Susan B. Anthony List is protesting:

“Dawn Johnsen does not represent mainstream America or the type of common ground abortion policy President Obama promised this nation,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List. “Her bizarre characterizations of pregnancy as ‘slavery’ and mothers as ‘losers in the contraceptive lottery’ expose an unacceptable disdain for commonsense abortion restrictions and motherhood in general. Furthermore, Johnsen’s opposition to existing federal restrictions like the ban on partial-birth abortion casts doubt on her ability to perform her duties faithfully as the head of the Office of Legal Counsel.”

 
Across the country, Susan B. Anthony List members expressed outrage at Johnsen’s nomination, sending over 26,000 letters of opposition to their U.S. Senators. Johnsen was voted out of the Senate Judiciary Committee on March 19th by a vote of 11-7.
 
While Johnsen served as the legal counsel for National Abortion & Reproductive Rights Action League (now NARAL Pro-Choice America), she authored numerous legal opinions rejecting any and all restrictions on abortion. Some notable quotes from Johnsen’s amicus curiae brief in the case Webster v. Reproductive Health Services include:
 
“Abortion restrictions ‘reduce pregnant women to no more than fetal containers.'”
 
“The argument that women who become pregnant have in some sense consented to the pregnancy belies reality…and others who are the inevitable losers in the contraceptive lottery no more ‘consent’ to pregnancy than pedestrians ‘consent’ to being struck by drunk drivers.”
 
“The experience [of abortion] is no longer traumatic; the response of most women to the experience is relief.”

 
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