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- Judge Amy Coney Barrett, who is President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, publicly supported an anti-abortion group in 2006 in its opposition to Roe v. Wade.
- Barrett signed on to an advertisement from St. Joseph County Right to Life that appeared in the South Bend Tribune newspaper.
- “We … oppose abortion on demand and defend the right to life from fertilization to natural death. Please continue to pray to end abortion,” the ad said.
- The deeply conservative Barrett has so far not been explicit about her views on reproductive rights, but is likely to face questions about this topic during her upcoming confirmation hearings.
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President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Amy Coney Barrett, in 2006 publicly backed an anti-abortion group that opposes Roe v. Wade, a new report shows.
Barrett, then a law professor at University of Notre Dame, signed on to an advertisement by St. Joseph County Right to Life — known locally as Right to Life Michiana — that appeared in the South Bend Tribune newspaper.
“We, the following citizens of Michiana, oppose abortion on demand and defend the right to life from fertilization to natural death. Please continue to pray to end abortion,” the ad read, according to The Guardian, which first reported this story.
The Right to Life group was founded in 1972 in anticipation of the landmark 1973 Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion nationwide. It has since worked to oppose the procedure in the form of protests, media and educational outreach, and prayer, according to its website.
Executive Director Jackie Appleman told The Guardian that the organization also supports “the criminalization of the doctors who perform abortions.”
“At this point we are not supportive of criminalizing the women,” Appleman added. “We would be supportive of criminalizing the discarding of frozen embryos or selective reduction through the IVF process.”
A major appeal to his conservative base, Trump has often vocalized his anti-abortion stance and was the first president to attend a rally for the cause earlier this year in Washington. On the 2016 campaign trail, he pledged to appoint conservative justices to the Supreme Court in a bid to overturn Roe v. Wade.
However, Barrett — similar to two other conservative justices, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, who Trump nominated — has been vague about her positions on reproductive rights.
During the upcoming Senate confirmation hearings, Barrett is likely to be questioned about her position on Roe v. Wade as well as her Catholic faith. She faced similar questions in 2017 before being seated on the 7th US Circuit Court of Appeals.
“The dogma lives loudly within you,” Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California said at the time.
Barrett, however, said that her religious views would not impact her jurisprudence.
Trump attempted to defend his Supreme Court pick during the first presidential debate on Tuesday, telling former Vice President Joe Biden, “You don’t know what her views are.”
“Roe v. Wade. That’s also at stake right now,” Biden said.
“There’s nothing happening there,” Trump replied.
