Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Senator Orrin Hatch is the first member of the Senate Judiciary Committee to officially announce his opposition to the nomination of pro-abortion activist Elena Kagan for the Supreme Court. The panel heard this week from Kagan and pro-life advocates about her memos urging support for partial-birth abortions.

Those memos played a role, Hatch said, in determining his vote.

"I have concluded that, based on evidence rather than blind faith, General Kagan regrettably does not meet this standard and that, therefore, I cannot support her appointment," Hatch said in a statement.

Hatch shares the concerns of pro-life groups about Kagan's status as a judicial activist...

Washington (CNSNews.com) – The health care plan proposed by President Barack Obama on Monday includes an individual mandate requiring every American to have health insurance despite concerns from Republican lawmakers and legal experts that the provision is not constitutional.

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), the longest-serving Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, has called the constitutionality of an individual mandate into question. Meanwhile, more than 30 state legislators have either passed or are considering legislation that would not require residents of their states to buy health insurance.

Nevertheless, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told CNSNews.com that he is not aware of any legal review of this question by the White House.

CNSNews.com asked Gibbs, “President Obama’s proposal includes an individual mandate, which many Republicans, Orrin Hatch and others, have said is not constitutional.

Washington (CNSNews.com) – Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said there is nothing in the U.S. Constitution that gives Congress the power to compel individuals to buy health insurance.

“It isn’t there. It isn’t there,” Hatch said last week at the U.S. Capitol, when CNSNews.com asked where in the Constitution Congress finds authority to create an individual mandate to purchase health insurance.

CNSNews.com talked to Hatch, a longtime member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, while he was on his way to take part in a series of procedural votes on the Senate’s health-care reform bill last Wednesday that paved the way for its eventual passage. The votes included a constitutional “point of order” that Republicans raised, challenging the constitutionality of an individual mandate...

A bipartisan effort is underway in the Senate to ensure that the government health insurance programs created by the healthcare bill would not be permitted to cover abortions.

Pro-life groups have been warning that the healthcare bill proposed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and backed by President Obama would put the federal government in the business of subsidizing abortions in an unprecedented way.

Democratic Senator Ben Nelson (NE) and Republican Orrin Hatch (UT) plan to advance an amendment that would prohibit the use of taxpayer funds to subsidize abortions under the so-called "public option." The Hatch-Nelson amendment, which is nearly identical to the Stupak language approved in the House, will likely be voted on next week...

(CNSNews.com) - Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, who has served in the Senate for 33 years and is a longtime member of the Judiciary Committee, told CNSNews.com that he does not believe the Democrats’ health-care reform plan is constitutionally justifiable, noting that if the federal government can force Americans to buy health insurance “then there is literally nothing the federal government can’t force us to do.”

Both the House and Senate versions of the health-care reform plan would force all individuals who are citizens or legal residents of the United States to buy health insurance.

(CNSNews.com) – White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs told CNSNews.com on Wednesday that there is no "veracity" to the argument that the U.S. Constitution does not authorize the federal government to force individuals to buy health insurance.

The Congressional Budget Office has said that the federal government has never before in American history forced Americans to purchase any good or service.

When the health-care bill was being debated in the Senate Finance Committee, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), the former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, raised questions about the constitutionality of forcing Americans to buy health insurance, which all congressional versions of the health care bill would do...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- The pro-life lawmakers who led the fight to stop the massive abortion funding in the Senate health care bills during committee consideration plan to reintroduce their amendments on the Senate floor.

Members of the Senate Finance Committee and the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee rejected the pro-life amendments during the consideration of the Baucus and Kennedy health care bills. The amendments were defeated on largely partisan votes with most Democrats voting against them and most Republicans voting for them.

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Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Now that a Senate committee has rejected pro-life amendments to the Baucus heath care measure to remove the abortion funding found in it, the next battle for pro-life advocates and the next step in the Senate is a full floor debate on the pro-abortion health care bills in mid-October.

As LifeNews.com reported on Wednesday, the Senate Finance Committee defeated an amendment from Sen. Orrin Hatch on a 13-10 vote that would have stripped the Baucus bill of its abortion subsidies.

The other health care bill in the Senate, the measure named for the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, also contains provisions that would result in sweeping pro-abortion mandates and government subsidies for abortions...

Members of the Senate Finance Committee rejected an amendment Wednesday to strengthen anti-abortion provisions in the Senate's health care overhaul bill.

Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, whose amendment lost 13 to 10, argued before the panel that tightening is needed to prevent federal funds from being used to pay for abortion.

"I want assurances that taxpayer dollars will not be used to fund abortions," Hatch said before members of the committee.

But a host of Democratic senators were quick to blast Hatch's amendment, calling it "offensive" to women and claiming it seeks to change current law...