By Andrea Giordano, NWPC Communications Intern
Last week marked the final day of Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Her nomination will undergo a formal Senate confirmation vote as early as October 26, just eight days before the national election, following the rushed timeline Republican’s committed to after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death on September 18. With Judge Barrett’s consistently conservative voting record, her replacement of liberal icon Justice Ginsburg would represent the biggest ideological shift on the Supreme Court in almost 30 years. Her confirmation would inevitably confirm conservative dominance on the court for the coming years, indicating a threat to many rights as we know them.
Judge Barrett is an accomplished judge who currently sits on the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and a former Notre Dame law professor. She clerked under Justice Antonin-Scalia, known for his literal interpretations of the Constitution, and has cemented her reputation as a careful textualist and originalist in his image. She is also a mother of seven with a strong professional and academic record. Her shining accomplishments and undeniable status as a strong woman, however, do not mean women must support her. Her record and beliefs on abortion, healthcare, LGBTQ rights, and gun safety are concerning and should be women’s primary consideration regarding her nomination. Contrary to what conservative women like Senator Marsha Blackburn have touted in recent months, feminism does not mean supporting a public figure because of her gender, but because of what she stands for.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a feminist icon not because she was a woman, but because she used her lived experiences of gender discrimination as motivation to make the legal system more inclusive, ensuring younger generations of Americans did not have to experience the inequity she did. Amy Coney Barrett certainly shares her gender with Justice Ginsburg, but not her fervor for inclusivity. Although Judge Barrett has determinedly avoided making statements about how she will vote on pivotal issues like abortion and healthcare, saying “judges are not policy makers,” her uniformly conservative voting record allows us to make some logical assumptions. Her vote with what will be a 6-3 conservative bloc of the Supreme Court has the potential to strip American women of control over their reproductive systems, drastically diminish healthcare protections, curtail LGBTQ citizens’ rights, and more.
Throughout her hearings this week, Judge Barrett has repeated her mission to “apply the law as written” and never allow personal convictions to sway her rulings. However, no matter how much of a textualist a judge may be, research suggests that their personal views do play into the way they vote. Barrett is undoubtedly personally opposed to abortion. In 2006 she signed a letter, published in a newspaper while she was a law professor at Notre Dame, explicitly opposing “abortion on demand.” This is an unusual public declaration for a Supreme Court nominee. Furthermore, President Trump has repeatedly promised to put justices on the court who will overrule Roe v. Wade, and opponents of abortion are excited about Judge Barrett’s nomination. She has ruled in three abortion cases in her home state of Indiana court, in all of which she dissented against expanding abortion rights at the state level. Finally, she has written that precedent is not a “hard-and-fast” rule in constitutional cases, and is especially unlikely to bear if the issue is highly debated by the public, as Roe v. Wade is.
If Judge Barrett is confirmed before Election Day, she will sit on the court to hear a pivotal case that could decide the future of the Affordable Care Act, on Nov. 10. Although she has not expressed how she will rule on this challenge to Obamacare, her criticism of Chief Justice Roberts’s 2012 opinion on the health care law and her alignment with the conservative legal movement suggests she will vote in favor of this opposition and those coming down the line.
Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s voting record and ability to shift the Court firmly to the right upon confirmation pose a threat to many American rights. Her rushed, unabashedly political nomination, shortly after Justice Ginsburg’s death and while countless Americans were already casting their votes, threatened the integrity of the Supreme Court. We must continue to advocate for a high court that provides all Americans the inherent rights they deserve.
Andrea Giordano is a senior at the University of Georgia from Washington D.C. She currently studies International Affairs and Journalism with a minor in Spanish and a Public Affairs Professional Certificate. She has always been interested in global affairs, which has only grown through her recent exchange semester at the University of Oxford and teaching volunteership in Arequipa, Peru. She has previously interned in public relations at the Georgia Museum of Art, assisted in podcast production at The Passages Project, and completed research for GroundBreakers’ COVID-19 Community Resource Map in Latin America and Spain. Andrea loves staying up-to-date on current events and gender equality in our nation and around the world.
