Muscatine

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop has written an extensive letter to members of the Senate calling for a no vote on the Supreme Court nomination of Elena Kagan. The letter focuses attention on the Clinton administration memos Kagan authored showing her attempting to manipulate abortion opinion.

Specifically, Koop refers to the ways in which Kagan influenced the language of a 1997 statement by American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists on partial-birth abortions.

Whereas ACOG found no occasion in which the three-day-long abortion procedure is medically necessary for women, Kagan pressured ACOG to include language saying there may be instances where it is and the Supreme Court eventually relied on that language to overturn state bans on the abortion procedure.

That eventually kept partial-birth abortions legal for several years longer until the Supreme Court reversed itself when considering a national ban Congress approved with medical findings that partial-birth abortions are medically unnecessary.

In his letter, Koop calls "unethical" and "disgraceful" Kagan's effort to persuade the medical group to change its expert opinion to conform to her political demands.

"She was willing to replace a medical statement with a political statement that was not supported by any existing medical data," writes Koop.

"Kagan's political language, a direct result of the amendment she made to ACOG's Policy Statement, made its way into American jurisprudence and misled federal courts for the next decade," he said.

He condemns Kagan for having “manipulated the medical policy statement on partial-birth abortion of a major medical organization.”

“In my many decades of service as a medical doctor, I have never known of a case where partial-birth abortion was necessary in place of a more humane and ethical alternative,” the 93-year-old doctor continued. “I urge the Senate to reject the politicization of medical science and vote no on the Kagan nomination.”