By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Writer
Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, a pro-abortion “Catholic” politician who is on the Obama Administration’s “short list” of possible replacements for retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter, will be in Washington today, raising speculation about whether or not she will meet with the president about the vacancy.
An Obama administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the governor will be in Washington today for an unrelated event, but it is unclear whether she will also meet with Obama about the upcoming vacancy on the court.
Gov. Granholm has been a strong supporter of abortion who vetoed a ban on partial birth abortions twice during her tenure as governor. She has publicly stated that she “fully supports” Roe v. Wade and that she believes the abortion decision is “[a] matter of health between a woman and her doctor.”
In 2002, when she first ran for Governor of Michigan, she pledged to defend access to abortion and to support an increase in the number of abortion clinics operating in the state, declaring that she would “rather work on a decrease in demand (for abortion), not supply.”
She also vetoed another pro-life bill that would have strengthened the state’s parental consent law and opposed legislation that would have required abortion clinics to allow women considering abortion to see ultrasound images of their unborn child.
The Michigan governor has also maintained close ties with pro-abortion groups and was the keynote speaker at a pro-abortion rally at the state capital in April 2006.
Last year, her anti-life advocacy won her a public rebuke from Bishop Earl Boyea of Lansing for remarks she made about embryonic stem cell research during an Oct. 26 campaign rally for Barack Obama. During the rally, she said that “as a Catholic, I can say to be pro-cure is to be pro-life.”
The following day, Bishop Boyea called Granholm’s comment a “shocking” misrepresentation of Church teaching regarding embryonic stem-cell research.
“Nothing could be further from the truth,” Bishop Boyea said. “While the Catholic Church strongly supports legitimate forms of stem cell research and all other proper forms of scientific inquiry, the Church also teaches that is it is always immoral to destroy a human embryo.”
He went on to say that a well-formed Catholic conscience would never lead a person to support this kind of destructive research.
To view the background of President Obama’s possible Supreme Court nominees, visit http://www.aul.org/ussc_potentials
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