Becerra "wants to impose California's COVID-19 failures and abortion extremism on the rest of the nation," Severino said on Thursday.
A coalition of conservative groups-including CatholicVote and the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List-are launching a media and grassroots campaign against Becerra's confirmation as well as Vanita Gupta's confirmation as associate attorney general.
"The choice of Becerra for HHS was a total 180 from the talk of 'unity' surrounding the inauguration," stated Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List. "He's as extreme as they come on abortion."
On Wednesday, the chair of the Senate Pro-Life Caucus said Becerra was "radical" in using the power of the state to prosecute pro-life groups.
Throughout his career in California, Becerra has been "attacking" pro-life nuns and pro-life crisis pregnancy clinics "with radical, radical efforts," Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) said at an online panel opposing Becerra's confirmation.
Becerra's previous opposition to laws protecting infant survivors of abortion-while he was a congressman-"is just chilling for all of us," Daines said, "but that is who will lead the HHS Department."
As attorney general of California, Becerra repeatedly defended the state's pro-abortion laws while also prosecuting pro-life activists. He also led other state attorneys general in fighting state abortion restrictions in court.
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Becerra defended the state's Reproductive FACT Act, a law passed in 2015 before his tenure that forced crisis pregnancy centers to advertise where clients could get abortions. The court battles over the law reached the Supreme Court, which ruled in 2018 that the law violated the free speech rights of pregnancy centers.
He also continued the state's prosecution of pro-life activist David Daleiden, for his 2015 undercover videos claiming that Planned Parenthood unlawfully profited from the fetal tissue of aborted babies. The previous attorney general, current Vice President Kamala Harris, initiated the prosecution of Daleiden.
Becerra defended the state's 2014 mandate which forced even Catholic religious- the Missionary Guadalupanas of the Holy Spirit-to provide abortion coverage in employee health plans. For this action-as well as for the state's previous enforcement of the Reproductive FACT Act-the HHS Office for Civil Rights issued notices of violation to the state.