By Claudia Nachega
President Donald Trump recently announced Judge Amy Coney Barrett as his Supreme Court Justice nominee. This comes a week after the passing of late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, pioneer of women’s rights and leader of the court’s liberal wing. With racial unrest, economic crisis, and the coronavirus pandemic, Barrett’s nomination rises tensions amidst an already heated election season and particularly raises concern among female voters regarding women’s reproductive rights and her anti-abortion views.
Now sitting as a judge on the Seventh Circuit of Appeals, wife and mother of seven children, 48 year old Judge Barrett would be the youngest and least experienced justice on the court. Graduating from Notre Dame Law in 1997, Barrett went on to clerk for the late Supreme Court Justice, Antonin Scalia, known for being a staunch conservative justice. Throughout her professional career, Barrett has kept a solid track record of conservative rulings which have raised many concerns surrounding her ability to keep her personal and political beliefs separate from serving justice.
In 2017 during her Court of Appeals confirmation hearing, Sen. Diane Feinstein spoke to her saying, “The dogma lives loudly within you,” referring to Judge Barrett’s firm anti-abortion stance as a devout Catholic. Despite saying, “ abortion is… always immoral,” Barrett assured her that her personal beliefs and faith would not infringe upon her court rulings as a judge. This, of course, was before she was named as a Supreme Court Justice nominee, who if confirmed by the Senate, would greatly shift the balance of power in conservative favor and make the likelihood of an overturn of Roe v. Wade exceedingly possible. In stark contrast, late Justice Ginsburg was a vocal proponent of a woman’s right to choose whether or not she wants to have an abortion in support of gender equality: “Abortion prohibition by the State, however controls women and denies them full autonomy and full equality with men.”
Congressional Democrats and Joe Biden have criticized President Trump’s decision to go ahead and nominate a new Supreme Court Justice, especially since Trump has been looking to gut the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare, since he took office. Not once, but twice has the ACA withstood Supreme Court rulings seeking to deem it unconstitutional. Those who vote to confirm Barrett in the Senate will essentially be voting to repeal the ACA which provides healthcare coverage for pre-existing medical conditions.
Barrett has already expressed disapproval of the ACA signing her name on a letter attacking it:
“The simple fact is that the Obama administration is compelling religious people and institutions who are employers to purchase a health insurance contract that provides abortion-inducing drugs, contraception and sterilization. This is a grave violation of religious freedom and cannot stand.”
The judge would presumably vote against the ACA, which extends healthcare coverage to millions of Americans, if presented again to the Supreme Court, and in the middle of a pandemic where 210,000 Americans have lost their lives due to the coronavirus. Her ruling could strip away healthcare coverage for millions of Americans susceptible to the coronavirus.
Opposers of Barrett’s nomination have even dubbed her as a religious extremist citing her membership in People of Praise, a Christian faith group, as reason. People of Praise was used as inspiration for author Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, which tells the story of women living under a theocracy where their bodies are viewed as property of the State. People of Praise has also been criticized for being authoritarian. Members of the group are highly involved in each others’ lives according to the group's mission statement:
“Our community life is characterized by deep and lasting friendships. We share our lives together often in small groups and in larger prayer meetings. We read Scripture together. We share meals together. We attend each other's baptisms and weddings and funerals. We support each other financially and materially and spiritually.”
Sarah Barringer Gordon, a constitutional law and history professor at the University of Pennsylvania, responded affirming concerns over Judge Barrett’s membership with the group saying, “These groups can become so absorbing that it’s difficult for a person to retain individual judgement,”
As a judge, it is imperative that one’s personal convictions heed no bearing upon one’s decisions and rulings in a court of law in order to exact impartiality and fairness. While Judge Barrett has expressed numerous times that her faith would not get in the way of her judicial duties, her actions say otherwise.
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