Abortion activists found another reason to complain about U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh this week: He may not protect the endangered dusky gopher frog.
Most of their attacks on Kavanaugh have involved his conservative rulings on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for D.C., where he developed an extensive record of protecting religious liberty and enforcing restrictions on abortion. He could be a deciding opinion on vital issues like abortion restrictions and Roe v. Wade.
While abortion activists have been lamenting that Kavanaugh may protect unborn babies’ lives, they are worried that he may not protect the lives of endangered species.
According to Mother Jones, a liberal pro-abortion news site, the high court soon could hear its first case about the power of the Fish and Wildlife Service to set aside land for endangered species.
The case, Weyerhaeuser Co. v. Fish and Wildlife Service, is scheduled to be heard by the Supreme Court in October. It could be one of Kavanaugh’s first, if confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
The Endangered Species Act case “directly deals with the future of a small amphibian, but could majorly impact how we protect our most vulnerable animals for decades to come,” according to the report.
Here’s more:
While Justice Kennedy was a solid swing vote on environmental cases, Kavanaugh has a less-than-stellar environmental record from his 12 years as judge on the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, ruling in favor of industry and against the environment in several cases. …
Weyerhaeuser Co. v. FWS focuses on the critically-endangered dusky gopher frog, a three-inch, warty amphibian native to Mississippi. Back in 2010, the Fish and Wildlife Service designated more than 1,500 acres of private Louisiana land as critical habitat for the frog. The land had been owned by three private entities, including Weyerhaeuser, a timber company, which now argues that the agency’s action was an overstep of power. The key issue, they claim, is that the land was unoccupied, meaning there were no frogs living there at the time it was designated, and that the land is “not essential” for the conservation of the species. Therefore, the company says, the Fish and Wildlife Service had no right to designate the land as critical habitat.
The Fish and Wildlife Service, though, maintains that they do in fact have that right, as granted by the Endangered Species Act. The habitat contains historic breeding sites for the frog and its decision was based on scientific evidence, the Service says.
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Abortion activists often accuse pro-lifers of only caring about certain lives, but the accusation fits their own movement better. While they care about the environment and endangered species, they completely ignore that unborn human babies also are being destroyed at an alarming rate every year.
Roe v. Wade allows unborn babies to be aborted for basically any reason up to birth. The United States is one of only seven countries in the world that allows elective abortions past 20 weeks — a fact confirmed by the Washington Post fact checker. More than 40 years after the Supreme Court ruled on Roe, about 60 million unborn babies have been legally aborted in the United States.
National pro-life leaders have expressed high hopes for Kavanaugh and the future of unborn babies’ rights.
