Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett defended the justices’ integrity Sunday as defenders of the Constitution and not “partisan hacks,” as some accuse them of being.
Her comments, made during a speech at the University of Kentucky McConnell Center, came as pro-abortion Democrats criticize the high court for allowing a Texas pro-life law to go into effect. The law prohibits abortions once an unborn baby’s heartbeat is detectable, about six weeks of pregnancy.
“My goal today is to convince you that this court is not comprised of a bunch of partisan hacks,” Barrett said, Business Insider reports. “Judicial philosophies are not the same as political parties.”
Barrett, a conservative Catholic, was President Donald Trump’s third appointee to the Supreme Court. Earlier this month, she, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh joined Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito in refusing a request from pro-abortion groups to temporarily block the Texas pro-life law.
In her speech Sunday, Barrett said the justices strive to be “hyper vigilant to make sure they’re not letting personal biases creep into their decisions, since judges are people, too,” according to the report.
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She also said the way the media covers the court and “hot takes on Twitter” contribute to the idea that the justices are making results-oriented decisions, rather than an interpretation of the law.
“Sometimes, I don’t like the results of my decisions. But it’s not my job to decide cases based on the outcome I want,” she said, USA Today reported.
Though about a dozen states have passed similar heartbeat laws, Texas is the first to be allowed to enforce its law. The others have been blocked by the courts. If upheld, it has the potential to save tens of thousands of babies from abortion every year.
In their decision, the Supreme Court justices made it clear that they were not ruling on the constitutionality of the Texas law and said lower courts should handle the matter first.
However, their ruling was met with accusations of partisan politics and calls from abortion activists and Democrat leaders to pack the court. Some even claimed the high court overturned Roe v. Wade in their decision about Texas, which is not true.
Democrat leaders especially have verbally attacked the justices. Last year, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer openly threatened Justices Kavanaugh and Gorsuch not to restrict or end abortion, saying: “You have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go through with these awful decisions.” In response, Chief Justice John Roberts issue a statement condemning the Democrat leader’s “dangerous” and “threatening statements.”
The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear another major abortion case out of Mississippi in October. At issue in the case is the question of whether states may prohibit abortions before an unborn baby is viable. Under the current precedent established under Roe v. Wade, states are prohibited from doing so.
Since Roe, nearly 63 million unborn babies have been legally aborted in the U.S. Polls consistently show that a strong majority of Americans oppose abortions in the second and third trimesters and many support heartbeat laws that protect unborn babies at their earliest stage of life.
