Senate Democratic Women Warn Supreme Court Nominee Would Roll Back Reproductive Rights

As several pending cases about women’s constitutional right to make their own health care decisions work their way through lower courts, President Trump’s alarming nominee for SCOTUS would be a deciding vote against women’s reproductive rights

Judge Kavanaugh was vetted by conservative groups determined to find candidates who met President Trump’s repeated promises to nominate “pro-life” judges to the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade

Recent polling finds two-thirds of the country do not want the Court to overturn Roe. v. Wade

Senate Dems: With Judge Kavanaugh as a nominee for the Supreme Court, reproductive rights are at risk

(Washington, D.C.) — Today, Senators Patty Murray (D-WA), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), and Tina Smith (D-MN), held a press conference with experts and activists from Planned Parenthood, Physicians for Reproductive Health, and NARAL to speak about their opposition to President Trump’s nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. They highlighted the serious threat his nomination poses to reproductive rights and women’s ability to make their own personal health decisions and called on Republicans to protect women’s reproductive rights. Kavanaugh’s nomination is particularly alarming in light of his record on reproductive rights and President Trump’s repeated promises to appoint a “pro-life” justice in order to overturn Roe v. Wade and send the decision back to the states. The Democrats made clear that Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court would not only threaten Roe, but endanger a woman’s access to contraception and right to make choices about her reproductive health.

“Make no mistake: if Judge Kavanaugh is seated on the Supreme Court bench, five men will be empowered to overturn Roe v. Wade and take us back to the days when women didn’t have the option of accessing safe, legal abortion,” said Senator Murray. “Five men will decide that young women will not get to plan their families and achieve their dreams. Five men will decide access to safe abortion in the United States is a privilege for the wealthy, rather than what it should be and has been for decades—the constitutionally protected right of every woman, no matter how much money she has or where she lives. Five men will decide that women cannot be trusted to make their own, most personal health care decisions—and therefore that in a very real sense, women are not treated equally in the United States of America.”

“I come to this issue knowing what life was like before Roe v. Wade. I saw the desperation of young women who became pregnant unintentionally, terrified to tell their parents and scrapping together to travel to foreign countries for care. It’s not an urban legend to say that women were forced to turn to dangerous back allies or try to perform the procedure on themselves. I know what it was like. I lived through those times and we can’t go back,” said Senator Feinstein.

“If Roe v. Wade were overturned, the protections it provides to women who use assistive reproductive technologies like IVF to start and grow their families—women like me—could disappear,” said Senator Duckworth. “Who we confirm as our next Supreme Court Justice won’t just have decision-making power over whether these women able to start and grow their families, it will affect all women, workers and people with pre-existing conditions across this nation. With a President who promised to only appoint Justices who will overturn Roe v. Wade, we need to make sure that the next Justice will protect the Constitutional rights of all women and allow all the families like mine seeking to start a family the ability to have precious children like I have with Maile and Abigail.”

“As the only senator who has ever worked at Planned Parenthood, I know that when women do not have the freedom to make their own choices about their reproductive health care, they have lost the freedom to direct their own lives—their personal lives, their family, their economic security,” said Senator Smith. “The President has been clear about his test for judicial nominations; at campaign rallies, over and over again, he has promised to nominate anti-choice judges who would, as he said, ‘automatically,’ overturn Roe v. Wade. It’s clear that President Trump, the Heritage Foundation, and the Federalist Society believe they can count on Judge Kavanaugh to cast that decisive fifth vote to overturn Roe. But American women do not need the government looking over their shoulder in the examination room, telling them what they can and cannot do—they need to be able to make their own decisions.”

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