For the reasons cited by Barbara O'Brien, this would-be Elena Kagan "scandal" about changed wording in an American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists position paper -- being perpetuated by the likes of world's-phoniest-libertarian Glenn Reynolds -- is a complete joke. There's no contradiction between the two drafts, because D&X abortions are, in fact, not medically necessary in a majority of cases. But this fact doesn't mean that they are never medically necessary, and indeed the original statement implies that there are cases in which D&X abortions are necessary or preferable for protecting a woman's health. Adding a statement to clarify what was implicit in the first draft doesn't distort anything, and of course if ACOG didn't think the statement was accurate, Kagan had no power to get them to change it. There's nothing here.
Since the only point of this feeble "smoking gun" is to allow Senate Republicans to mention the phrase "partial birth abortion" a lot, it is worth noting that, as Judge Posner and Justice Stevens have explained convincingly, the entire issue is a farce created for the political advantage of the Republican Party. The distinction between D&X abortions and other abortion procedures is wholly arbitrary, and for people who have supported irrational laws making such a distinction to pretend to care about rigorous medical science is nothing but comedy of the lowest form.
--Scott Lemieux
