Chelsea Clinton slammed Amy Coney Barrett as a potential disaster on the U.S. Supreme Court because she supports laws that would protect unborn babies from abortion.
In an op-ed Monday in Cosmopolitan, Clinton, the daughter of former President Bill and Hillary Clinton, urged voters to “dissent” to Barrett’s confirmation, People reports.
President Donald Trump named Barrett as his choice last week to fill the seat of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a heroine of abortion activists. The president and many others have praised Barrett as a “brilliant and gifted” lawyer who will uphold the Constitution and not legislate from the bench.
A Notre Dame law professor and judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, Barrett is Catholic, conservative and pro-life. Therefore, Clinton and other abortion supporters believe there will be “disastrous consequences for the country” if the U.S. Senate confirms her.
“The right to choose … has hung on by the thinnest of legal threads,” Clinton wrote. “One Supreme Court vote could be enough to snap it. Although she doesn’t have a long judicial record, Amy Coney Barrett has voted in two abortion cases—both times in favor of abortion restrictions that would require parental notification and allow the state to ban the procedure on the basis of race, sex, or Down syndrome diagnosis.”
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Clinton contrasted her with Ginsburg, who consistently ruled in favor of abortion on demand during her nearly 30 years on the Supreme Court. Her father, pro-abortion President Bill Clinton, chose Ginsburg, and last year, he admitted that abortion was a major factor in his choice.
“I admired Justice Ginsburg so much: She was the rare adult who made our country live up to a child’s inherent sense of fairness,” his daughter wrote this week. “Justice Ginsburg served on the court for 27 years. She wrote 483 opinions, many of which were intent on making every American who felt excluded—women in particular—belong.”
Clinton urged voters to follow Ginsburg’s lead as “The Great Dissenter” and demand that the Senate reject Barrett.
“Now it is our turn to dissent against Trump’s choice for Ginsburg’s replacement and against the rush to confirm her before Election Day,” she wrote.
Barrett’s voice would be a welcome change to the liberal, pro-abortion female justices on the court. Ginsburg especially was idolized by abortion activists for repeatedly ruling against pro-life laws. Though abortion is considered a “woman’s issue,” polls consistently show that many women are strongly pro-life and a majority want the law to protect unborn babies from abortion, at least in some circumstances.
If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Barrett would solidify a strong 6-3 conservative majority on the high court. Pro-life advocates hope and abortion activists fear that Barrett could lead to the undoing of Roe v. Wade. Pro-life leaders have praised her as an excellent choice for the court.
She is a former clerk of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Like Scalia, Barrett has been described as an “originalist” judge. Though her judicial rulings on abortion are few, she did rule in support of two Indiana pro-life laws during her time on the Seventh Circuit.
She also has made several statements about the value of babies in the womb. According to the Law and Crime blog, Barrett signed a public letter in 2015 that emphasized “the value of human life from conception to natural death.” She also said she believes that life begins at conception.
Barrett is a law professor at the University of Notre Dame, a devout Catholic and a wife and mother of seven children.
