What GOP-nominated justices said about Roe to Senate panel
WASHINGTON >> In one form or another, every Supreme Court nominee is asked during Senate hearings about his or her views of the Roe v. Wade abortion rights ruling that has stood for a half century.
Now, a draft opinion obtained by Politico suggests that a majority of the court is prepared to strike down the landmark 1973 decision, leaving it to the states to determine a woman's ability to get an abortion.
A look at how the Republican-nominated justices, now a 6-3 majority, responded when asked by members of the Senate Judiciary Committee for their views on the case:
Amy Coney Barrett, 2020
Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, then the top Democrat on the committee, asked Barrett: “So the question comes, what happens? Will this justice support a law that has substantial precedent now? Would you commit yourself on whether you would or would not?”
“Senator, what I will commit is that I will obey all the rules of stare decisis,” Barrett replied, referring to the doctrine of courts giving weight to precedent when making their decisions.
Barrett went on to say that she would do that for “any issue that comes up, abortion or anything else. I'll follow the law.”
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, DMinn., asked Barrett whether she viewed Roe v. Wade as a “super precedent.” Barrett replied that the way the term is used in “scholarship” and the way she had used it in an article was to define cases so well settled that people do not seriously push for its overruling.
“And I'm answering a lot of questions about Roe, which I think indicates that Roe doesn't fall in that category,” Barrett said.
Brett Kavanaugh, 2018
It was Feinstein who also asked Kavanaugh, “What would you say your position today is on a woman's right to choose?”
“As a judge, it is an important precedent of the Supreme Court. By `it,' I mean Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. They have been reaffirmed many times. Casey is precedent on precedent, which itself is an important factor to remember,” Kavanaugh said.
Casey was a 1992 decision that reaffirmed a constitutional right to abortion services.
Kavanaugh went on to say that he understood the significance of the issue. “I always try and I do hear of the real world effects of that decision, as I try to do, of all the decisions of my court and of the Supreme Court.”
The late Sen. Arlen Specter, analysis were to get beyond that point, then I would approach the question with an open mind, and I would listen to the arguments that were made.”
“So you would approach it with an open mind notwithstanding your 1985 statement?” Specter asked.
“Absolutely, senator. That was a statement that I made at a prior period of time when I was performing a different role, and as I said yesterday, when someone becomes a judge, you really have to put aside the things that you did as a lawyer at prior points in your legal career and think about legal issues the way a judge thinks about legal issues.”
Alito was the author of the leaked draft opinion, which declares the ruling in Roe v. Wade was “egregiously wrong from the start.”
Clarence Thomas, 1991