Xavier Becerra

A Roman Catholic.

Xavier Bacerra is the 25th Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. In that capacity he oversees CDC, NIH, FDA, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the US Public Health Service and a host of other health related agencies. Becerra, born in the US was raised in Tijuana, Mexico and educated in Spain and the United States where he obtained his law degree. Becerra has no medical or scientific training. However, his wife is an M.D.

I don’t normally do this but there is always exception to every secular rule; here is what Wikipedia has to tell us about Becerra:

”Abortion rights and pay equity

A writer for Vanity Fair described Becerra as a "strident supporter of women's health and reproductive rights";^[30] The New York Times stated that he has been "vocal in the Democratic Party about fighting for women's health".^[31] He voted against H.R. 3541, the Prenatal Non-Discrimination Act (PRENDA), which would have imposed civil and criminal penalties on anyone knowingly attempting to perform a sex-selective abortion. The 2012 bill also would have required health care providers to report known or suspected violations to law enforcement, including suspicions about a woman's motives for seeking an abortion.^[32] Becerra received a 100% rating from Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America in 2012.^[33][34] Becerra voted for the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009.^[35][36]

Becerra argued before the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that the Little Sisters of the Poor, a Catholic religious order, should be required to provide birth control services under the Affordable Care Act.^[37] In late 2020, arguing that the prosecution would discourage pregnant women from obtaining addiction treatment, Becerra requested that the Supreme Court of California block the murder prosecution of a woman who had consumed methamphetamine during her pregnancy, resulting in a stillbirth. The court declined to do so.^[38] In response to the Trump administration's 2020 decision to restrict federal funding to California because it requires insurance providers to cover abortion, Becerra stated that "California has the sovereign right to protect women's reproductive rights".^[39]”

I have left the links active so that if you’re interested in learning more about you can follow them. We are told (see reference 31) that abortion is a matter of women’s health. I am still waiting for someone to give a rational, fact based explanation — using real data — of how murdering one’s baby improves one’s health.

Not only would Becerra have you believe that abortion is a matter of health he would also demand that you accept his position EVEN if you are a member of a religious order:

”Becerra argued before the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that the Little Sisters of the Poor, a Catholic religious order, should be required to provide birth control services under the Affordable Care Act.^[37]”

For Becerra, the First Amendment appears to hold no sway over his desire to ensure that the murder of a baby is protected by law.

One of Becerra’s principle allies and supports is NARAL, the National Abortion Rights Action League. Since the Supreme Court decision known as Dobbs removed the federal government from the question of abortion and returned it to the states NARAL, Planned Parenthood and their allies have been working overtime to find a way to have the federal government ensure that abortion rights are nationally enforced despite what the majority of Americans believe.

The latest move is to make abortifacient drugs available through the mail even to people who live in states in which abortion has been limited to cases of incest, rape or when the mother’s life is in danger due to her pregnancy or until such time as a fetal heart beat is detected.

Just last week a federal judge in Texas blocked the sale of mifepristone, an abortifacient drug most often used in combination with a second but less effective drug, misoprostol to effect abortion without regard for a state’s laws restricting that act. In his decision the judge in the case, Matthew J. Kacsmaryk, wrote:

"The Court does not second-guess FDA’s decision-making lightly. But here, FDA acquiesced on its legitimate safety concerns — in violation of its statutory duty — based on plainly unsound reasoning and studies that did not support its conclusions." 

And this is how Becerra ally NARAL responded:

And this is how Becerra has responded:

”Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra said Sunday that the Biden administration is considering defying a conservative federal judge’s order that suspends the approval of mifepristone, the nation’s most widely used abortion drug.

‘We want the courts to overturn this reckless decision,’ Becerra said on CNN’s State of the Union of the ruling issued Friday by U.S. District Court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk. ‘We want, yes, that women continue to have access to a drug that’s proven itself safe. Millions of women have used this drug around the world.’ ”

My issue today is not to discuss abortion and whether it is a right given by God or ensured by the federal government or whether mifepristone is or is not safe for use. I’m not even going to address the oddity of calling an abortifacient drug a “medication”. Rather I am concerned with two other points.

First, the absence of the Roman Catholic Church in the matter of a Becerra’s remarks that abortion is a right and second, that a judges decision should be ignored.

Once upon a time we were a nation that prided itself on adhering to the “rule of law” but this administration and its Obama administration predecessor have decided that the “rule of law” is often an inconvenient obstacle to the attainment of their policy goals and so those laws, those rules, those injunctions are ignored.

The Catholic Church is important in this matter because both Becerra and Joe Biden insist that they are Roman Catholics which gives them two problems. First, their position is in opposition to Church teaching that abortion is a sin. Second, they're failure to recognize Christ’s teaching that we are to obey secular law.

This is just the latest example of the advocacy of lawlessness by this administration. The case of the persecution of Donald Trump by charging him with a federal crime that doesn’t exist is another.

IF you want to understand why we are so deeply divided over issues of morality it is because the have chosen leaders whose morality is situational and our moral leaders, our faith leaders are very often absent or speak soto voce. It is an untenable position for “One Nation Under God.”


Union, Kentucky

10 April 2023