Neil Gorsuch, 2017

With President Donald Trump's first Supreme Court nomination, it was Sen. Charles Grassley. R-Iowa, who asked point-blank: “Can you tell me whether Roe was decided correctly?

Gorsuch replied: “I would tell you that Roe v. Wade, decided in 1973, is a precedent of the U.S. Supreme Court. It has been reaffirmed. The reliance interest considerations are important there, and all of the other factors that go into analyzing precedent have to be considered. It is a precedent of the U.S. Supreme Court. It was reaffirmed in Casey in 1992 and in several other cases. So a good judge will consider it as precedent of the U.S. Supreme Court worthy as treatment of precedent like any other.”

John Roberts, 2005

R-Pa., asked of the now-chief justice, who was a federal appeals court judge when nominated: “In your confirmation hearing for circuit court, your testimony read to this effect, and it has been widely quoted: `Roe is the settled law of the land.' Do you mean settled for you, settled only for your capacity as a circuit judge, or settled beyond that?”

Roberts replied: “It's settled as a precedent of the court, entitled to respect under principles of stare decisis. And those principles, applied in the Casey case, explain when cases should be revisited and when they should not. And it is settled as a precedent of the Court, yes.”

Samuel Alito, 2006

Specter, who was unabashedly supportive of Roe v. Wade, observed during Alito's hearings that the “dominant issue” was the “widespread concern” about Alito's position on a woman's right to choose. The issue arose because of a 1985 statement by Alito that the Constitution does not provide for the right to an abortion, Specter declared.

“Do you agree with that statement today, Judge Alito?” Specter asked.

“Well, that was a correct statement of what I thought in 1985 from my vantage point in 1985, and that was as a line attorney in the Department of Justice in the Reagan administration.

“Today if the issue were to come before me, if I am fortunate enough to be confirmed and the issue were to come before me, the first question would be the question that we've been discussing, and that's the issue of stare decisis,” Alito said. “And if the

The late Sen. Howard Metzenbaum, D-Ohio, recalled chairing a committee hearing and listening to women maimed by “back-alley abortionists.” He said he was “terrified if we turn back the clock on legal abortion services.”

In questioning Thomas the senator said: “I want to ask you once again, of appealing to your sense of compassion, whether or not you believe the Constitution protects a woman's right to an abortion?”

Thomas replied: “I guess as a kid we heard the hushed whispers about illegal abortions and individuals performing them in less than safe environments, but they were whispers. It would, of course, if a woman is subjected to the agony of an environment like that, on a personal level, certainly, I am very, very pained by that. I think any of us would be.”

Thomas declined though to give his opinion “on the issue, the question that you asked me.”

“I think it would undermine my ability to sit in an impartial way on an important case like that,” he said.