To: Interested PartiesFrom: FidelisDate: April 2, 2009Re: Research Brief of Dawn Johnsen, Nominee for the Office of Legal Counsel
OVERVIEW
Dawn Johnsen’s advocacy for the National Abortion Rights Action League, now NARALPro-Choice America (“NARAL”) and the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, suggestsshe will push the Department of Justice to adopt legally tenuous arguments based onher own extreme liberal political preferences.For instance, Johnsen has aggressively opposed even modest restrictions on abortion,like the partial-birth abortion ban and parental involvement. These extreme positionshave often rested on questionable legal arguments, including the argument that bans onabortion might undermine the Thirteenth Amendment, which banned slavery, in that“forced pregnancy requires a woman to provide continuous physical service to the fetusin order to further the state’s asserted interest.”
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Johnsen also approaches most topics, including those pertaining to “reproductive rights,”with little regard for professionalism, in many cases accusing her opponents of beingsexists. Johnsen has repeatedly used caustic language in blog entries on Slate.comand other publications. Her rhetoric sends a clear signal that she is incapable of the kindof compromise, or intellectual engagement, one would expect from a deliberativeprofessional nominated to one of the most important offices in federal government.
CAREER
1998-Present: Professor of Law, Indiana University School of Law: Bloomington, IN1997-1998: Acting Assistant Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel1993-1996: Deputy Assistant Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel1988-1993: Legal Director, National Abortion Rights Action League
1
ACLU, Brief for the United States as Amicus Curiae Supporting Appellants, Webster v. ReproductiveHealth Services, 492 U.S. 490 (1989) (No. 88-605).
1987-1988: Staff Counsel Fellow, American Civil Liberties Union ReproductiveFreedom Project1986-1987: Law Clerk, Judge Richard D. Cudahy, U.S. Court of Appeals for theSeventh Circuit
ABORTION
Johnsen has pursued a hyper-liberal agenda as it relates to abortion and “sexualfreedom.” In
Webster v. Reproductive Health Services
, Johnsen co-authored a brief onbehalf of seventy-seven feminist organizations arguing against a Missouri law thatprohibited both the use of state employees or facilities to perform or assist abortions andthe use of public funds, employees, or facilities to “encourage or counsel” a woman tohave an abortion.
2
The Court ultimately disagreed with Johnsen’s position and held thatthe law was constitutionally permissible. Johnsen made the following statements in thatbrief:
o
“Statutes that curtail [a woman’s] abortion choice are disturbingly suggestive of involuntary servitude, prohibited by the Thirteenth Amendment, in that forcedpregnancy requires a woman to provide continuous physical service to the fetus inorder to further the state’s asserted interest.”
o
“Legal abortion remains safer than childbirth.”
o
A comparison of abortion restrictions to conscription: “She is constantly aware for nine months that her body is not wholly her own: the state has conscripted her bodyfor its own ends.” And restrictions “reduce pregnant women to no more than fetalcontainers.”
o
“By singling out only women to sacrifice their bodies and autonomy to protect themere potentiality of life, abortion restrictions both reflect and reinforce the stereotypethat breeding children is women’s ‘natural role.’ And “requiring women to sacrificetheir bodies and their liberty in ways that the state never demands of men, state lawsmanifest the stereotype that it is women’s ‘natural role’ to bear children.”Johnsen has made similar statements in non-litigation contexts. For instance, in theeditorial
How Roe will really go
,
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Johnson argued that:
“The notion of legal restrictions assome kind of reasonable ‘compromise’ – perhaps to help make abortion ‘safe, legal, andrare’- proves nonsensical. For the women denied access the deprivation is absolute:either she can get a safe and legal abortion or she can’t. For her, a possibly urgentlyneeded abortion is not ‘rare,’ it’s impossible.”In his book
Bearing Right
, William Saletan explains that Johnsen was deeply involved ininforming the organizations views on policy, and “drew a hard line against legislativecompromise on parental involvement” in a minor's decision to abort. She urged NARAL:
2
ACLU, Brief for the United States as Amicus Curiae Supporting Appellants, Webster v. ReproductiveHealth Services, 492 U.S. 490 (1989) (No. 88-605).
3
How Roe will really go
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Dawn Johnsen 2009
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