Fight Brewing over Obama Nominee

President Obama's nominee to head the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel once compared "forced pregnancy" with slavery. Now Republicans are considering a filibuster to block her confirmation.

The controversy stems from comments made 20 years ago by Dawn Johnsen, a law professor at Indiana University, whose nomination is pending before the full Senate.

In a brief filed when she was a lawyer with the National Abortion Rights Action League, Johnsen cited a footnote that said forcing women to bear children was "disturbingly suggestive of involuntary servitude, prohibited by the 13th Amendment, in that forced pregnancy requires a woman to provide continuous physical service to the fetus in order to further the state's asserted interest."

At her confirmation hearing last month, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., asked whether Johnsen had said abortion rights should be protected by the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery.

"It seems to me just candidly beyond the pale," said Specter, who supports abortion rights.

But Johnsen said she merely suggested an analogy in the footnote and "never believed the 13th Amendment had any role" in the abortion issue.

At least 45 House Republicans have co-signed a letter to Obama asking him to withdraw Johnsen's nomination because of her "brazen" abortion rights stance.

But supporters of Johnsen are fighting back, most notably her former employer.

NARAL said this week it is mobilizing its nationwide network of activists and supporters to pressure the Senate to confirm Johnsen and two other Obama nominees -- Judge David Hamilton and Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius -- and stop what it deems attacks on nominees who support abortion rights. Filibusters won't be tolerated, the group said.

"The use of the 'F' word when referring to any of these nominees is unacceptable -- and this threat will not go unanswered," NARAL president Nancy Keenan said in a press release. - FOX News Story

You have to get worried anytime a group of activists are fighting so hard for a particular nominee. What do they have to gain from it. Look at their agenda and you generally will find the agenda behind the nominee they are fighting for.