WASHINGTON (AP) – In one form or another, each Supreme Court candidate has been asked during Senate hearings about his or her views on the half-century-old Rowe abortion rights ruling against Wade.
Now, a draft opinion received from Politico suggests that a majority of the court is ready to overturn the landmark 1973 ruling, leaving it to the states to determine a woman’s ability to have an abortion.
A look at how Republican-nominated judges, now 6-3, responded when asked by members of the Senate Judiciary Committee for their views on the case:
EMI HORSE BARRET, 2020:
Senator Diane Feinstein of California, then the top Democrat on the committee, asked Barrett: “So the question is, what’s going on? Will this justice support a law that has a significant precedent now? Would you commit to whether or not you would?
“Senator, what I will commit is to abide by all the rules of the star decisis,” Barrett replied, referring to the doctrine of the courts, which weigh precedent in precedent in their decisions.
Barrett went on to say that he would do this for any problem that arose, abortion or something else. I will obey the law. “
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., Asked Barrett if she saw Roe v. Wade as a “super precedent.” Barrett replied that the way the term is used in a “scholarship” and the way she used it in an article is to define cases so well settled that people do not seriously demand its repeal.
“And I answer a lot of questions about Roe, which I think shows that Roe doesn’t fall into that category,” Barrett said.
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BRET CAVANO, 2018: Feinstein also asked Cavanaugh: “What would you say is that your position today is on a woman’s right to choose?”
“As a judge, this is an important precedent for the Supreme Court. By “it” I mean Rowe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. They have been confirmed many times. “Casey is a precedent upon precedent, which in itself is an important factor to remember,” Cavanaugh said.
Casey was a 1992 decision that reaffirmed the constitutional right to abortion services.
Cavanaugh went on to say that he understood the significance of the question. “I always try and hear about the real consequences of this decision, as I try to do, from all the decisions of my court and the Supreme Court.”
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NIL GORSUCH, 2017:
With President Donald Trump’s first Supreme Court nomination, it was Senator Charles Grassley. R-Iowa, who asked directly: “Can you tell me if Roe is solved correctly?
Gorsuch replied: “I would tell you that Rowe v. Wade, ruled in 1973, is a precedent for the United States Supreme Court. It has been confirmed. Considerations of interest in trust are important there and all other factors included in the analysis of the precedent must be taken into account. This is a precedent for the US Supreme Court. It was confirmed in Casey in 1992 and in several other cases. So a good judge will consider it a precedent for the US Supreme Court, worthy of treating precedent like any other. ”
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JOHN ROBERTS, 2005
The late Senator Arlen Specter, R-Pa., Asked the current chief justice, who was a judge at the Federal Court of Appeals, when he was nominated: The deer is the established law of the earth. “Are you saying that I am settled for you, settled only because of your capacity as a district judge, or is it settled beyond that?”
Roberts replied: “This is set as a precedent for the court, which has the right to respect according to the principles of star decisis. And these principles applied in the Casey case explain when cases need to be reconsidered and when not. And this is set as a precedent for the Court, yes.
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SAMUEL ALITO, 2006
Specter, who shamelessly supported Rowe v. Wade, said during Alito’s hearings that the “dominant issue” was the “widespread concern” about Alito’s position on women’s right to choose. The problem arose because of Alito’s 1985 statement that the constitution did not provide for the right to abortion, Specter said.
“Do you agree with that statement today, Judge Alito?” Specter asked.
“Well, that was a true statement of what I thought in 1985 from my point of view in 1985, and it was like a line lawyer at the Reagan administration’s Department of Justice.
“Today, if the question arises before me, if I am lucky enough to be confirmed and the question had to come before me, the first question will be the one we discussed, and that is the question of resolving the gaze,” Alito said. “And if the analysis goes beyond that point, then I would approach the issue with an open mind and listen to the arguments that were made.”
“So you would be open-minded, regardless of your 1985 statement?” Specter asked.
“Absolutely, Senator.” This was a statement I made in a previous time when I played a different role, and as I said yesterday, when someone becomes a judge, you really have to put aside the things you did as a lawyer at previous points in your legal career and think about legal questions the way a judge thinks about legal issues. ”
Alito was the author of an expired draft statement declaring that the Roe v. Wade ruling was “extremely wrong from the start”.
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CLARENS THOMAS, 1991:
The late Senator Howard Metzenbaum, Ohio, recalls chairing a committee hearing and listening to women crippled by “dead abortions.” He said he was “horrified to turn back the clock on legal abortion services”.
During Thomas’ questioning, the senator said: “I want to ask you once again, calling on your compassion, do you believe that the Constitution protects a woman’s right to abortion?
Thomas replied: “I guess as a child we heard the quiet whisper about illegal abortions and people performing them in a less safe environment, but it was a whisper. It would be, of course, if a woman was subjected to agony from such an environment, on a personal level, it certainly hurts me very, very much. I think each of us would be. “
However, Thomas declined to comment “on the question you asked me.”
“I think this will undermine my ability to participate impartially in such an important case,” he said.
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