Kathleen Sebelius Biography
Kathleen Sebelius is an American businesswoman and politician who served as the 21st United States Secretary of Health and Human Services from 2009 until 2014.
She previously was the 44th Governor of Kansas from 2003 to 2009, the second woman to hold that office. Kathleen is a member of the Democratic Party. She was the Democratic respondent to the 2008 State of the Union address and is chair-emerita of the Democratic Governors Association (she was its first female chair). On April 10, 2014, Sebelius announced her resignation as Secretary of Health and Human Services. She is CEO of Sebelius Resources LLC.
Kathleen Sebelius Age
Sebelius was born on May 15, 1948 in Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S. She is 71 years old as of 2019.
Kathleen Sebelius Net Worth
Sebelius has a net worth of 30 million US dollars.
Kathleen Sebelius Husband
Kathleen married K. Gary Sebelius, a federal magistrate judge and the son of former Republican congressman Keith Sebelius, on December 31, 1974 in Columbus, Ohio. The couple has two sons: Ned (born in 1982) and John (born in 1985). Kathleen visits her childhood and current vacation home, located in Leland, Michigan, north of Traverse City, Michigan.
An avid fan of jazz music, Sebelius has a 30-year streak of annually attending Jazz Fest in New Orleans as of 2009. Only missing festivals two years in that period, because she was 9 months pregnant at the time.
Kathleen Sebelius Early Life and Education
She was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, the daughter of Mary Kathryn (née Dixon) and John “Jack” Gilligan. Sebelius’s father is a former Democratic Ohio Governor and thus they became the first father/daughter governor duo in the United States after her election. Her family was Roman Catholic, and had Irish ancestry.
Sebelius attended the Summit Country Day School in Cincinnati and graduated from Trinity Washington University in Washington, D.C. with a B.A. in political science. She later earned a master of public administration degree from the University of Kansas. She moved to Kansas in 1974.
Kathleen Sebelius Political Positions
Abortion
She is “staunchly pro-choice.” Her office stated that abortions declined 8.5% during her tenure as governor. As per the Kansas Department of Health and Environment statistics, the number of induced abortions in Kansas declined by 1,568, or 12.6%, from 2001 to 2007, the year of the most recently available statistics. Sebelius’s administration attributes the decline to health care reforms that Sebelius initiated, including “adoption incentives, extended health services for pregnant women…, sex education and… a variety of support services for families.”
Across the nation, the number of abortions declined approximately 7.6% from 2000 to 2005, the year of the most recently available and reliable U.S. statistics. She has been endorsed by Planned Parenthood, which has raised funds on her behalf. The years 2003, 2005, 2006 and again in 2008, Sebelius vetoed legislation that would have limited abortions in Kansas.
Sebelius vetoed House Substitute for Senate Bill 389, titled the Comprehensive Abortion Reform Act by its sponsors in April 21, 2008. Other proponents of the bill argued the legislation would strengthen late-term abortion laws and prevent so-called “coerced abortions,” particularly with respect to minors. The Kansas City Star reported that HS SB 389 would have required the State of Kansas to collect patient diagnostic information providing detailed medical justification for late-term abortions and would have also permitted litigants to sue abortion providers if they thought that a relative of theirs was planning a late-term abortion in violation of Kansas law.
Kathleen Sebelius objected to the constitutionality, efficacy and morality of the proposed legislation. Sebelius wrote, “The United States Supreme Court decisions make clear that any law regulating abortion must contain exceptions for pregnancies which endanger the woman’s life or health. But SB 389 allows a variety of individuals to seek a court order preventing a woman from obtaining an abortion, even where it may be necessary to save her life.
I am concerned that the bill is unconstitutional or even worse, endangers the lives of women.” In addition, she expressed concern that the bill would “likely encourage extensive litigation” and that it “unnecessarily jeopardizes the privacy of Kansas women’s confidential medical records.”
She is a member of the Catholic Church; however, in early March 2009, then-Archbishop Raymond Leo Burke, prefect for the Apostolic Signatura, the Holy See’s highest court, declared that Sebelius should not approach the altar for Communion in the United States, saying that, “after pastoral admonition, she obstinately persists in serious sin”.
The Kansas City Archbishop Joseph Fred Naumann also asked that Sebelius no longer receive Holy Communion because of her position on abortion. Naumann criticized Sebelius for vetoing HS SB 389. The action received mixed reviews in the Catholic press.
Anti-abortion activists criticized Sebelius’s HHS nomination because she had received donations to her campaign from George Tiller, the medical director of an abortion clinic in Wichita. Not long after Sebelius was sworn in as HHS Secretary, on May 31, 2009, Tiller was shot through the eye and killed by Scott Roeder.
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