NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado called on Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner Monday to oppose the confirmation of anti-choice U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions, who is Trump’s nominee for attorney general.
Sessions “couldn’t be more at odds with Colorado’s pro-choice values,” said Karen Middleton, Director of NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado in a statement, adding that Sessions views “women as second-class citizens when it comes to our rights and our health care.”
If Gardner votes to confirm Sessions, “NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado and our thousands of supporters statewide will know about it, will remember it and hold him accountable,” said Middleton.
In response to NARAL’s statement, Leslie Hanks, a spokesperson for the anti-choice American Right to Life, said that “no elected official should be bullied, by the abortion cartel, into abandoning the weakest and most helpless among us,” and she urged Coloradans to “pray that Senator Sessions will be a champion of equal protection under law for every human being, regardless of age or size.”
“Senator Cory Gardner will undoubtedly be delighted to support such an honorable candidate as Jeff Sessions for Attorney General,” said Hanks via e-mail, adding that Sessions belief in “our founding principles,” including the 5th and 14th Amendments, will lead to “re-establishing liberty and justice for all” in America at at time when “the rule of law is heavy on the minds of most Americans, after the past eight years of lawlessness.”
Hanks lauded Sessions’ previous condemnation of Roe v. Wade, while Middleton denounced the nominee’s stance on the landmark abortion-rights ruling.
“As a Senator, Jeff Sessions has just about the most horrifically anti-woman, anti-women’s health, anti-reproductive freedom records we’ve ever seen. As AG, he would pose a serious threat to the rights and health of Colorado women.”
“Jeff Sessions doesn’t even respect women in the military, which has enormous impact in Colorado,” said Middleton. “Sessions has repeatedly voted to deny women in the military – who defend our freedom overseas – the right to use their own, private funds for abortion care at military hospitals.”
During a U.S. Senate confirmation hearing yesterday, Sessions said he wouldn’t challenge Roe.
CNN reported yesterday:
Sessions, who has consistently voted against abortion rights in the Senate and has a 0% rating from several abortion rights groups, told senators overseeing his committee hearing that although he believed Roe v. Wade violated the Constitution, he would defend it.
“It is the law of the land, it has been settled for some time,” Sessions said. “I will respect it and follow it.”
Sessions said, however, that he believes the decision was a “colossal” mistake by the Supreme Court.
Pro-choice groups responded to Sessions’ comments yesterday by saying that in his position as attorney general, Sessions could restrict abortion rights through many other paths other than attacking Roe, which some say could be undermined by possible Trump appointees to the U.S. Supreme Court anyway.