During Senate confirmation hearings today, Judge Brett Kavanaugh refused to say that there is a so-called right to abortion. He declined to take the bait from pro-abortion Senator Dianne Feinstein who wants to get him to commit to upolding Roe v Wade once he is confirmed to the Supreme Court.
The pro-abortion California Senator asked Judge Kavanaugh whether or not he thought there was a right to abortion and whether or not Roe v Wade was “correctly decided.” Kavanaugh declined to agree with either of those claims.
Instead, Cavanaugh did with many previous Supreme Court nominees have done — and that is to simply say that Roe v Wade and the subsequent decision Planned Parenthood vs Casey are Supreme Court decisions that are precedent and entitled to respect. But that doesn’t mean those decisions can’t ever be overturned, as the Supreme Court has already overturned one abortion precedent when it comes to banning partial birth abortions. The high court initially overturned a Nebraska law banning partial birth abortions and then years later upheld a congressional ban on the gruesome abortion procedure.
Kavanaugh would not say whether he believed that women had a right to abortion, stressing instead that Casey created a “precedent on precedent.”
“I will tell you what my view now is: It is an important precedent of the Supreme Court that has been reaffirmed many times,” Kavanaugh said.
Kavanaugh also said that he “understood the issue” of abortion and how intense the debate is surrounding it.
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“I understand your point of view and I understand how passionate and how deeply people feel about this issue,” Kavanaugh said. “I understand the importance of this issue … I don’t live in a bubble. I live in the real world. I understand the importance of the issue.”
After the questioning, Feinstein indicated she was upset that Kavanaugh refused to pledge his loyalty to unlimited abortion.
Thomas, Alito, Roberts and Gorsuch used the same playbook: 1. Profess loyalty to precedent in Senate hearings 2. Overturn precedent once on the bench. We can’t accept vague promises from Brett Kavanaugh when women’s reproductive freedom is at stake.
— Sen Dianne Feinstein (@SenFeinstein) September 5, 2018
After the exchange, the Planned Parenthood abortion business went after the nominee, tweeting “Don’t be fooled. We already know what Brett Kavanaugh thinks about abortion. ”
In fact, the text of a speech Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanagh gave in 2017 has people on both sides of the abortion debate wondering if it’s an indication that he would be open to overturning Roe v Wade. The SCOTUS nominee called Roe a “freewheeling judicial creation of unenumerated rights that were not rooted in the nation’s history and tradition.”
During a meeting with pro-abortion Republican Sen. Susan Collins, Kavanaugh called Roe v. Wade “settled law.” Collins is concerned about abortion and she wants to know that Kavanaugh will support the horrendous Roe v Wade decision that allowed virtually unlimited abortion throughout pregnancy. During a meeting prior to the hearings, Kavanaugh reportedly told her, according to an account by Collins to the media, that he believes the Supreme Court decision is “settled law.”
According to Collins, Kavanagh told her that he agrees with the comments made by Chief Justice John Roberts during his confirmation committee hearings. At that time, pro-abortion Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter had hoped to get Roberts to commit to regarding Roe as supposedly “super duper precedent.”
Roberts had no intention of falling into Senator Spectre’s trap. So he merely said that Roe is a precedent of the Supreme Court that is settled law. That can just as easily mean that the law is simply settled for now until the Supreme Court reverses itself by undoing the terrible damage it wrought in 1973 by inventing a fictitious abortion right.
Pro-life advocates don’t need to be worried about Kavanaugh’s comments or those from Chief Justice Roberts during his confirmation committee hearings. The settled law comments are merely a non-committal response to those who want nominees to pledge to uphold Roe. No nominee can bias themselves during the confirmation process because then they would have to recuse themselves if they took a position when deciding cases on abortion or any other political issue.
Although some pro-life voters are upset with Chief Justice John Roberts for his decision to uphold Obamacare, when it comes to a straight-up abortion case itself Roberts has already shown to be on the pro-life side. Moreover, Roberts has already revealed an inclination to overturn precedent when he voted with the majority of the Supreme Court to overturn a previous decision striking down a ban on partial-birth abortions. By voting to affirm the Congressional ban on the grisly abortion procedure, Roberts and the Supreme Court set a new precedent that previous president on abortion doesn’t necessarily need to stand indefinitely. That bodes well for potentially striking down Roe v Wade at some point in the future.
