Nominee to Head Office of Legal Counsel Explains Abortion Footnote

President Obama’s nominee to head the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel fielded few questions about her abortion views and little opposition at a confirmation hearing yesterday.

The nominee, Dawn Johnsen, is an Indiana University law professor who has been a critic of Bush administration terrorism policies and once served as legal counsel to the abortion rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America.

The New York Times reports that the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing was smooth sailing for Johnsen, as Republicans appeared to have little “appetite for combat.” On the Democratic side, Sen. Dianne Feinstein offered praise of Johnsen’s anti-waterboarding views. Johnsen will serve as “the conscience of the Justice Department,” Feinstein said.

Johnsen testified that waterboarding is torture, and she doesn’t think torture could ever be justified under the law, according to The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times.

Johnsen also was asked about a footnote she wrote 20 years ago in a U.S. Supreme Court brief on abortion, the Times story says. Sen. Arlen Specter, the committee’s ranking Republican, said the footnote compared pregnancy to slavery, suggesting that abortion rights could be protected by the 13th Amendment.

The footnote said forcing a woman to continue a pregnancy against her will was “disturbingly suggestive of involuntary servitude.”

Johnsen said she was suggesting an analogy, but never “believed the 13th Amendment had any role” in the abortion issue.