Vermont leadership panics over Supreme Court pick, goes all in for abortion

MONTPELIER — Attorney General TJ Donovan, Bernie Sanders and other left-leaning voices are panicking over the prospect of another Trump judicial appointee landing on the U.S. Supreme Court, and are using the hot-button issue of abortion to rally opposition.

Lou Varricchio/TNR

CHIEF ABORTION RIGHTS OFFICER: Attorney General TJ Donovan, a public representative, has been using his position to support abortion and oppose President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh.

Brett Kavanaugh is a federal appeals court judge, a former aide to the second Bush Administration, and an investigator into President Bill Clinton during impeachment efforts. His nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Donald Trump has won accolades from Republicans and moderate Democrats alike.

But experience is holding little weight with Vermont liberals, who seem interested only in his views on abortion.

Donovan, a Democrat and the state’s chief law enforcement officer, has begun using state resources, including a new website, to campaign for abortion provider Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, the sole Title X funded provider in Vermont.

“Title X clinics provide essential health care to low-income Vermonters,” Attorney General Donovan said last week in a news release. “It’s critical that they continue. That’s why I’ve created a website for Vermonters to tell HHS that these rules are bad for Vermont.”

RELATED: Planned Parenthood of N. New England: Trump’s Title X changes will cut our funds by 40 percent

Donovan also made his opinions known on Kavanaugh on his Twitter account.

In a press release, Donovan doubled down on his pro-abortion rhetoric.

“The core principles of Roe v. Wade have held firm for over 40 years,” he said. “The government should not be invading very private conversations between a woman and her doctor. The government should not be controlling the choices a woman makes about her own body.”

While Kavanaugh hasn’t explicitly stated his position on the matter, based on his past rulings and statements, some analysts think he would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that struck down state bans on abortion and legalized it nationwide.

“We all know that one way or another, Kavanaugh is going to be a vote to take away women’s right to choose,” commentator Paul Waldman wrote for the Washington Post. “To pretend otherwise is to be willfully obtuse.”

Planned Parenthood of Northern New England is also on the march to prevent the confirmation of Kavanaugh to the high court.

“Planned Parenthood of Northern New England opposes the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, and calls on the Senate to do the same,” Eileen Sullivan, PPNNE communications director, told True North.

“The selection of Brett Kavanaugh confirms our worst fears, because President Trump promised to appoint justices only if they would overturn Roe v. Wade. If he is confirmed, the rights and access we’ve spent decades fighting for could disappear, even though 70 percent of Americans support abortion rights.”

Bernie Sanders, I-Vt, on CNN expressed his dire concerns for not just abortion rights, but for the nation as a whole if Kavanaugh is selected.

“What we are talking about here is in a moment of American history where we have right-wing extremists controlling the House, the Senate, and the White House and if we appoint another right-wing extremist to the Supreme Court, I have very serious concerns about justice in this country and what will happen to the men, women, and children and the future of this nation,” he said.

Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president, in an interview with Fox News, criticized Democrats for turning the Supreme Court nomination process into a single-issue matter concerned only with abortion.

“He has offered a breadth of opinions that people should go look,” she said. “If you listen to a lot of commentators on cable news and elsewhere on Twitter, they act like the Supreme Court only talks about abortion and Roe v. Wade. If you look at last two weeks of the Supreme Court’s term this year, the breadth and the depth of the opinions that they actually issue gives you a clue as to what they consider in a typical term.”

But Donovan and Planned Parenthood of Northern New England are determined to defend abortion by opposing Kavanaugh and the loss of Title X funding, which is intended for family planning matters such as contraception, mammograms, prenatal care and STD prevention, not abortions.

To get around the federal prohibition on taxpayer funds for abortion, Planned Parenthood applies for Title X money for approved causes, despite being an abortion provider. The Trump Administration is asking that Planned Parenthood physically separate the facilities that perform the abortions from the facilities that perform other services if it wishes to continue receiving federal funds.

If the abortion provider loses the funding, eight federally qualified health care centers in Vermont, each with multiple satellite service locations, could receive the funding.

One resident who commented at Donovan’s pro-abortion website appeared to disagree with the premise of the site.

“Any money that Planned Parenthood says they would spend on actual women’s health care should be given to community health clinics, of which there are many more than Planned Parenthood sites, therefore more accessible to women,” the commenter wrote.

Vermont Right to Life director Mary Beerworth has stated that the legalization of abortion would revert back to the individual states if Roe v. Wade is overturned. In Vermont, one of the most socially liberal states in the country, abortion rights would likely continue without restriction.

Michael Bielawski is a reporter for True North Reports. Send him news tips at bielawski82@yahoo.com and follow him on Twitter @TrueNorthMikeB.

Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/James McNellis and Lou Varricchio/TNR

12 thoughts on “Vermont leadership panics over Supreme Court pick, goes all in for abortion

  1. Of course Leftist’s fear Freedom and Liberty as it antithetical to their beloved Communist utopia,they will get over it or not.

  2. Your related link headline is off by a factor of 10. In 2016, PPNNE had revenues of $21,827,562. Other news articles I have read on this subject indicate Planned Parenthood in Vermont receives about $775,000 in Title X funds annually. That is about 3.5 percent of PPNNE’s funding. Even if there are additional Title X funds received by PPNNE for Maine and New Hampshire, it certainly comes nowhere near 40 percent of PPNNE’s funding. I contacted the reporter who wrote the article, and he knows his numbers are wrong, but he didn’t bother to correct the article.

  3. Vermont today is so far left that it is hard to think of us as a rational state. My grandfather served in the legislature for a single term. I am almost sure he was a Democrat. My father’s middle name was after the local Democratic town chair, My mother was a Democrat. My grandmother was a Democrat post mistress,.Towns used to send their people because it was their turn, A lot of people did not want to go. Not a lot of money and bad roads. He went and served his time. Grandfather Pike gave me the Freeman’s Oath. He valued hard work, self-reliance, minimal state control, and local protections for those who were disabled, sick, or indigent beyond their control. He made the Republicans of today look like Democrats.

  4. If they (the lefties) were smart they would bring up his views on the 4th amendment or his work on the patriot act.

    This man is not a protector of an individual’s privacy.

  5. They call it a woman’s right to choose, when, in reality, it’s just a license for men to use the bodies of women and girls for their own satisfaction, with no commitment to the women, and no consequences for the men. While Planned Parenthood uses Title X funds to “clean up” for those real misogynists, community health centers could be using them to provide real health care to men, women, girls, and boys, and babies.

    • July 25, 2018 at 3:58 am
      “They call it a woman’s right to choose, when, in reality, it license for men to use the bodies of women and girls for their own commitment to the women, and no consequences for the men.”

      I call it taking responsiblity for your choices. No one can use you if you don’t allow it.

  6. It’s thoroughly refreshing to see this group of weasels ‘panic’. That’s why we voted for President Trump. I’d actually enjoy seeing them squirm for the next six years or more. The normally smarmy progressive crowd is moving further to the fringe as they become completely unhinged – that should help.

  7. I have a solution available. Since killing of children is OK, why don’t we apply that to the other cause du-jour that of illegal imigrants. Solving both problems, kill unborn or those that come across illegally.
    There, fixed it for ya.

  8. These people are sick. They are screaming “Fire” in a crowded theater. Nothing will happen to Roe V Wade; it will still stand. The only thing that will happen is that term limits will be placed on abortion. Democrats believe that killing a child while it is being born is just fine. It’s a woman’s right, they say. This woman is a murderer. Period. And so are the doctors and nurses that participate. But some of the worst are these sleazy politicians…..Donovan, Welch, Sanders, Leahy, Gillibrand, Pelosi etc. Some even call themselves Christians. Leahy, Pelosi? They shouldn’t even be allowed within 100 yards of a church. All these people: Pure evil.

    • Agree. It is time for Vermont to have new representatives. Sanders, Leahy and Welch time has come to be replaced them.

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