Law professors called out the abortion chain Planned Parenthood on Tuesday for an inaccurate comment about one of President Donald Trump’s judicial appointees.
Planned Parenthood Action Fund blasted new 7th Circuit Appeals Judge Amy Coney Barrett on Tuesday on Twitter, alleging that she has religious biases that make her unfit to be a judge. The U.S. Senate confirmed Barrett in October.
Barrett, a professor at the Notre Dame Law School, is a devout Catholic – a point that abortion activists have been using to attack her credibility.
Planned Parenthood tweeted Tuesday:
Amy Coney Barrett — who was already confirmed, despite only having one case — said judges shouldn’t follow the law if it clashes with their religious beliefs. #BadForWomen #CourtsMatter
— Planned Parenthood (@PPact) December 12, 2017
But Barrett never said that.
Several law professors quickly called out the misleading tweet and urged Planned Parenthood to correct it. The abortion chain has yet to do so.
The Law and Crime blog reports law professors Carissa Byrne Hessick and Anthony M. Kreis both pointed out the inaccuracy publicly.
Hessick, a criminal law professor over at the University of North Carolina School of Law, responded on Twitter:
This is a false statement of Judge Barrett’s views. I hope that someone at @PPact will correct it. https://t.co/NmuahpVJsC
— Carissa Byrne Hessick (@CBHessick) December 12, 2017
Kreis, who teaches law at the Chicago-Kent College of Kent, also criticized Planned Parenthood for misleading people about Barrett:
I’ve yet to love a Trump judicial nominee. However, I’ve read this article. It isn’t what it said. Liberals should aim their fire where it is truly deserved. This isn’t it. https://t.co/LvCqZgF0No
— Anthony Michael Kreis (@AnthonyMKreis) December 12, 2017
Pro-abortion politicians barraged Barrett with hostile questions about her faith during the Senate confirmation hearing in September. She repeatedly denied Planned Parenthood’s accusations.
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Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, interrogated Barrett over her use of the term “orthodox Catholics” in an article she wrote previously.
“Do you consider yourself an orthodox Catholic?” Durbin asked.
“If you’re asking whether I take my faith seriously and I’m a faithful Catholic, I am,” she told the senator. “Although I would stress that my personal church affiliation or my religious belief would not bear on the discharge of my duties as a judge.”
At another point, Barrett added: “Were I confirmed as a judge, I would decide cases according to the rule of law beginning to end. In the rare circumstance that might ever arise, I can’t imagine one sitting here now, where I felt some contentious objection to the law, I would recuse. I would never impose my own personal convictions upon the law.”
When Barrett was confirmed in October, the Catholic Association’s Legal Advisor Andrea Picciotti-Bayer told LifeNews: “Amy Coney Barrett’s qualifications for the federal judiciary are undisputed, but abortion industry advocates continue their smear campaign by attacking Barrett’s Catholic faith. The full Senate rejected their attempt to hang a ‘Catholics need not apply’ sign outside the Senate chamber when it considers candidates to the judiciary. We applaud the Senate’s rejection of anti-Catholic bigotry and confirmation of Amy Barrett’s nomination to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals.”
