(CNS/Reuters)

Another day, another pro-abortion appointment.

That’s the depressing reality, as President-elect Barack Obama continues to assemble his cabinet and White House staff.

Today, in fact, Obama appointed not one, but two pro-abortion-rights Catholic Democrats to his cabinet: Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar and former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack.

Salazar and Vilsack will become Obama’s Interior and Agriculture secretaries, respectively. They join a long list of earlier pro-abortion appointments.

Salazar earned a pro-life rating of only 28% from the National Right to Life Committee for his voting record in the last Congress.

Regarding Vilsack, Iowa Right to Life Committee Executive Director Kim Lehman told the Daily Blog that “we definitely consider him anti-life.” Lehman cited four vetoes by Vilsack of pro-life bills that were passed by strong majorities in the state legislature as especially compelling evidence of Vilsack’s pro-abortion position.

Further confirmation that pro-abortion perspectives are likely to dominate Obama’s presidency comes by way of the posting on his transition website of a memo written by the abortion lobby, entitled “Advancing Reproductive Rights and Health in a New Administration.”

The 55-page memo outlines the priorities of the abortion industry for the next four years and highlights the industry’s wish list for the first 100 days of Obama’s presidency.

The wish list is a pro-life nightmare, calling for a swift reversal of virtually every significant pro-life achievement of the Bush presidency and implementation of an array of anti-life initiatives.

Passage of the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) is not among the priorities identified by the abortion lobby for the first 100 days. That’s probably because even abortion activists realize the bill — which if passed would repeal every federal, state and local restriction on access to abortion — is so extreme it will be a very tough sell in Congress and with the American people.

But the abortion industry requests Obama to bring pressure on Congress to pass FOCA, stating in the memo, “We urge the President to signal public support for FOCA and call on Congress to pass this important legislation.”

The posting of the abortion industry’s plans for the Obama presidency on Obama’s transition website surprised even abortion lobbyists, who are uneasy about giving so much publicity to their roadmap to a completely abortion-on-demand America.

In a post on the abortion-rights website RH Reality Check, entitled “Ready or Not: Obama Transition Team Publishes Reproductive Health Community’s Agenda,” contributor Emily Douglas reported abortion lobbyists had told her they were concerned that disclosure of their memo to Obama could undermine their plans.

“What advocates were less eager to share with the public is the detailed roadmap included in the document for the changes in policy needed to improve reproductive health for women both here and abroad,” Douglas wrote. “Several advocates cited concerns that the administration would be criticized as doing the bidding of reproductive health community if it made use of the specific legal reasoning outlined in the document.”

Douglas Johnson, legislative director of National Right to Life Committee, told Lifenews.com that the memo merely confirms what pro-lifers already knew — that Obama intends to be a willing servant of abortion activists.

Said Johnson, “What will soon be transparently obvious is that the Obama Administration is taking its marching orders from the abortion lobby.”

— Tom McFeely