Xavier Becerra’s Record of Abortion Extremism

On March 18, 2021 Xavier Becerra was confirmed in a 50-49 vote to serve as Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). When President-elect Biden announced in December 2020 that he would nominate Xavier Becerra to lead HHS, Big Abortion groups swiftly responded to the news, praising the pick. Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion business said “Mr. Becerra has been a decades-long champion for health care for all, including sexual and reproductive health care access.” NARAL praised the pick saying, “Becerra is committed to safeguarding and advancing reproductive freedom.” Similarly, the Population Connection Action Fund (formerly Zero Population Growth) responded: “Xavier Becerra is a reproductive rights champion.”

On this page you will find a comprehensive record, developed in conjunction with March for Life Action, of Xavier Becerra’s devotion to targeting pro-life Americans, rolling back pro-life laws, and his unquestioning loyalty to the Big Abortion Lobby. No surprise then that they responded with such enthusiasm when Biden announced Becerra as his pick to lead HHS.

Rep. Becerra voted both in 2013 and 2015 against legislation that would ban abortion at 5 months into pregnancy when an unborn child can feel excruciating pain.

In 2003, then-Rep. Becerra voted against the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. In a partial-birth abortion the child is delivered into the birth canal up to its shoulders and then killed through vacuuming out its brain and crushing its skull. Despite Becerra’s vote in opposition, the bill passed in 2003 and went on to be upheld by the Supreme Court in Gonzales v. Carhart in 2007.

In 2015, then-Rep. Becerra voted against HR 3504 The Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act protecting children born alive during an abortion.

Born-alive abortions DO happen. Statistics on babies born alive during abortion attempts are incomplete, however, of the states that include born-alive statistics in their abortion reporting, we know that in just three states between 2015 – 2018, 47 children were born alive during an abortion attempt: Arizona (10), Florida (21), and Minnesota (16).

77% of voters support legislation to ensure that a baby who survives a failed abortion be given the same medical treatment as any other baby born prematurely at the same age (55% strongly support).

In 1993 during his first term in Congress, Becerra voted against the Hyde Amendment to the LHHS Appropriations Bill (H.Amdt.185 to H.R.2518). The Hyde Amendment has been passed with bipartisan support every year since 1976 and ensures that federal tax dollars under Medicare cannot be used to pay for abortions.

As a U.S. Representative, Becerra voted not once but three times against the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act in 2011, 2014, and 2015. The act would codify Hyde Amendment protections, making them permanent.

In 2016, then-Rep. Becerra voted for an amendment to strike Hyde-type the rider in HR 5485 FY 2017 FSGG appropriations bill which prohibits Federal coverage of abortion the FEHB program.

As California Attorney General, Becerra led a a multistate amicus brief against the Trump-Pence administration’s Protect Life Rule, suing the federal government to restore approximately $60 million in taxpayer funds each year to the billion dollar abortion-giant Planned Parenthood. The suit ultimately lost in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

In 2020, Becerra sued HHS to block the Trump administration’s transparency rule requiring separate payments for abortion coverage under Obamacare. California requires all health plans – even for churches – to pay for abortion on demand, a violation of federal law that the Obama admin allowed but the Trump admin took action to stop. In a joint press release with Gov. Gavin Newsom, Becerra defended California’s position in violation of the Weldon Amendment saying: “California has the sovereign right to protect women’s reproductive rights… We will continue to protect our families’ access to healthcare, including women’s constitutional right to abortion.”

In Congress Rep. Becerra voted repeatedly against efforts to protect religious and conscience protections.  As California Attorney General Becerra sued the federal government to protect California’s regulation to force churches to pay for abortions in their health care plans.  One of the complaints was from the nuns, Guadalupanas, whose province is headquartered in Los Angeles, who are consecrated Catholic women who live among the poor and needy in inner city and rural areas. Their service includes teaching religion classes and working with destitute Spanish-speaking immigrants.

In 2019 Becerra sued the Little Sisters of the Poor, insisting the religious order should be forced to pay for contraception and abortifacients.

Becerra has a history of vigorously pushing for the unethical use of fetal tissue in taxpayer-funded scientific research, and falsely claimed that baby body parts are necessary to “accelerate vaccine development.” He opposed the Fetal Tissue Ethics Advisory Board assembled to identify alternatives to aborted fetal tissue in research. He also led 15 other Democratic Attorneys General in a letter on this topic in 2020, using the COVID-19 pandemic as an excuse to exploit the body parts of innocent unborn children.

In 2006, Rep. Becerra voted for taxpayer funding of human embryonic stem cell experimentation. In 2007, he voted against redirecting those taxpayer dollars to more ethical and successful lines of research.

In 2020, Becerra joined an amicus brief against the “Missouri Stands for the Unborn Act,” citing its provision protecting babies from eugenic discrimination abortions due to a diagnosis of Down syndrome.

In 2012, Becerra voted against the Prenatal Non-Discrimination Act (PRENDA), which would have made it a crime to perform an abortion based on the baby’s gender.

As California Attorney General, Becerra defended a California law mandating that pro-life pregnancy centers go against their mission to provide information to their patients on how to obtain an abortion. This would have forced pro-life medical professionals and volunteers to promote abortion against their consciences – an outright violation of their First Amendment rights.

The case, NIFLA v. Becerra, went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which struck down the discriminatory California law in 2018.

In 2015, David Daleiden of the Center for Medical Progress exposed Planned Parenthood for buying and selling baby body parts. Becerra voted against a congressional investigation into the scandal. Then in a move that the LA Times called a “disturbing overreach,” he revived 14 felony charges against Daleiden, first initiated by his predecessor, now VP Kamala Harris.

As the California Attorney General, Xavier Becerra has filed numerous lawsuits to overturn pro-life laws in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri and Ohio.  The laws ranged from ensuring women were protected from unscrupulous abortionists to banning late term abortions.

He claims the laws are an attack on Roe v. Wade and said, “No government, state or federal, has the right” to interfere with abortion.”  He has gone as far to say in an open letter that he would refuse to uphold pro-life state laws or prosecute abortionists who break the law if Roe were overturned.

Becerra joined an amicus brief and led a letter to Sec. Azar & FDA Commissioner Hahn advocating for the removal of the FDA’s medical safety standards (REMS) on chemical abortion drugs. This would expand the use of dangerous chemical abortion drugs, making every post office and pharmacy an abortion center.

While California ensured that abortion providers were kept open during the pandemic, AG Becerra joined an amicus brief against the state of Texas for not deeming abortion an essential procedure.

In 2005, then-Rep. Becerra voted to against NDAA provisions that prohibit abortions on military bases.

In 2005, then-Rep. Becerra voted against H.R. 748, The Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act, protecting minors being driven across state lines for an abortion without the parent’s permission

In 2004, then-Rep. Becerra voted against H.R. 1997, The Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which sought to make it a criminal offense to harm or kill a fetus during the commission of a violent crime.