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Trump and Barrett’s threat to abortion and LGBTQ rights is simply un-American
Robert Reich
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Amy Coney Barrett spent most of her time avoiding key questions during three days of Senate hearings to confirm her as a supreme court justice.
Barrett would become the third justice on the court to be appointed by Donald Trump – and her confirmation would give conservatives a bulletproof, six-justice majority on the nine-member court, which decides cases by a simple majority.
Barrett, a conservative Christian who has criticized the high court’s decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act (ACA), who has publicly opposed reproductive rights and who was a trustee at a school whose handbook included a stated opposition to same-sex marriage, is seen on the left as part of a power play by Donald Trump
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Depending on your point of view, the woman seated before the Senate judiciary committee for her first day of questioning was either the female Scalia or the anti-RBG. Or maybe, of course, both.As proceedings commenced in a brightly lit and deeply sanitized hearing room, Amy Coney Barrett, Donald Trump’s third nominee to the supreme court, described herself as an originalist in the tradition of her mentor. Like the late Antonin Scalia, for whom she clerked, she subscribes to a theory of constitutional interpretation that attempts to understand and apply “meaning that [the constitution] had at the time people ratified it”.That time was the 1780s, when only white and land-owning men could vote. Oddly, Scalia often produced opinions that delighted conservatives. Outside the Capitol on Tuesday, a group of conservative women gathered to sing and pray, hands extended heavenward.Senator Lindsey Graham, the Republican committee chair, asked Barrett if it was appropriate to call her the “female Scalia”. She demurred.“If I am confirmed, you would not be getting Justice Scalia,” she said. “You would be getting Justice Barrett.”All of the young conservative women out there, this hearing to me is about a place for youLindsey GrahamThat, of course, is exactly what Democrats fear.In several rounds of questioning, Democratic senators portrayed the would-be justice as a rightwing crusader, chosen to undermine the civil rights legacy of the justice she hopes to replace, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a liberal icon, a world-famous champion of women.Outside the Capitol on Monday, progressive activists had worn blood-red robes and bonnets, symbols of female oppression taken from The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel.Barrett has roots in a charismatic Catholic group, People of Praise, which has been cited as an inspiration for Atwood. Such citations are wrong, but in the hearing room on Tuesday Democratic senators nonetheless painted a determinedly dystopian picture, of an America ruled by a conservative court.In their telling, millions – constituents with names, faces and gut-wrenching stories the senators took took pains to tell – stand to lose access to life-saving services provided by the Affordable Care Act; poor women who cannot afford to travel for an abortion will be forced to make dangerous choices; same-sex couples may no longer have the right to marry.Barrett declined to answer questions on such issues – and in doing so, perhaps provocatively, cited RBG. A dictum Ginsburg set forth during her 1993 confirmation hearing: “No hints, no forecasts, no previews.”“These are life and death questions for people,” insisted Dianne Feinstein of California, the ranking Democrat on the panel. Barrett’s repeated refusal to answer questions on abortion was “distressing” Feinstein said, noting that Ginsburg was far more forthcoming about her views on the issue.“I have no agenda,” Barrett said, not for the first or last time.But Donald Trump does.The president chose Barrett from a list of what he called “pro-life” judges. He has said he hopes, even expects, the court will overturn Roe v Wade, the 1973 ruling that established the right to abortion.The president tweets of what he expects a supreme court nominee to do politically for himDick DurbinThe president has also insisted he needs a ninth justice on the court before the election, in case the result is contested.“Who came up with this notion, this insulting notion, that you might violate your oath?” Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois, wondered sarcastically, in response to Republicans’ accusation that his party was impugning Barrett’s judicial independence merely by asking where she stood on key issues.“Where could this idea have come from? Could it have come from the White House? Could it have come from the president’s tweets of what he expects a supreme court nominee to do politically for him? That is where it originated.”Despite it all, the hearing played out with an air of inevitability. Graham was clear. This was “the hearing to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the supreme court”, rather than the traditional opportunity to “consider” her nomination. More
On the second day of hearings before the Senate judiciary committee, Democrats pressed supreme court nominee Amy Coney Barrett on healthcare, election law and abortion rights – and met with little success.Donald Trump’s third nominee for the highest court dodged questions on how she might rule on a challenge to the Affordable Care Act (ACA); if she would recuse herself from any lawsuit about the presidential election; and whether she would vote to overturn the landmark 1973 ruling Roe v Wade, which made abortion legal.In an exchange with the Democratic Delaware senator Chris Coons, Barrett said: “I am not here on a mission to destroy the Affordable Care Act. I’m just here to apply the law and adhere to the rule of law.”Multiple Democratic senators pressed Barrett on whether she would recuse herself from a possible case about the outcome of the 2020 election. The Connecticut senator Richard Blumenthal said he was “disappointed” in Barrett’s refusal to commit to a position. He added: “It would be a dagger at the heart of the court and our democracy if this election is decided by the court rather than the American voters.”Barrett argued that she was not a pundit, citing remarks by Justice Elena Kagan and the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg in saying that outside of reviewing a specific case, it was not her place to offer a position.“No hints, no previews, no forecasts,” Barrett quoted Ginsburg as saying, after the California senator Dianne Feinstein questioned her about how she might rule in any case challenging the legality of abortion.Barrett is a devout Catholic whose previous statements and affiliations have been closely examined by Democrats and the media. Trump has said overturning Roe v Wade would be “possible” with Barrett on the court.When she was asked about a newspaper ad she signed criticizing Roe v Wade, first reported by the Guardian, Barrett said she had “no recollection” of it and stressed she had nothing to hide.At another point in Tuesday’s hearing, Barrett cited Kagan in saying she would not give “a thumbs up or thumbs down” on any hypothetical ruling.Most of the questioning from Democrats centered on the ACA, known popularly as Obamacare, and how a ruling by the high court overturning the law would take away healthcare from millions of Americans. A hearing is due a week after election day. Democrats see protecting the ACA as a productive electoral tactic, having focused on it in the 2018 midterms, when they took back the House.Barrett said she was not hostile to the ACA, or indeed abortion or gay rights, another area worrying progressives as the court seems set to tilt to a 6-3 conservative majority. Barrett said she was simply focused on upholding the law.“I am not hostile to the ACA,” Barrett said. “I apply the law, I follow the law. You make the policy.”Asked about gay rights, Barrett said: “I would not discriminate on the basis of sexual preference.”Her choice of words conspicuously suggested that to her, sexuality is a choice. Amid scrutiny of Barrett’s past, meanwhile, it has been reported that she was a trustee at a school whose handbook included stated opposition to same-sex marriageRepublican senators also questioned Barrett on healthcare, the Iowa senator Chuck Grassley asking if she had been asked during the nomination process if she supported overturning the ACA.“Absolutely not,” Barrett said. “I was never asked and if I had been that would’ve been a short conversation.”Barrett said it was “just not true” that she wanted to strike down protections for Americans with pre-existing conditions.Asked if she thought same-sex marriage should be a crime, she said the ruling in Obergefell v Hodges, in 2015, made it the law of the land.Asked if she would recuse herself on any lawsuit over the outcome of the 2020 election, however, Barrett declined to commit. Instead she said: “I have made no commitment to anyone – not in the Senate, not in the White House – on how I would decide a case.”It was the first of two sessions of questioning, after which outside witnesses will be called. Tuesday’s opening exchanges produced a mere continuation of Barrett’s seemingly serene journey into Ginsburg’s seat.Trump and Republicans are eager to move quickly. The president has said he wants to see Barrett confirmed before election day, which is in three weeks’ time, suggesting that this is in part because he hopes she will rule in his favor if a challenge to the election result reaches the highest court.In a conference call with reporters, Senate Democrats fretted about their chances of stopping Barrett.“The fact of the matter is this nominee is extreme,” the Connecticut senator Richard Blumenthal said. “Her views are outliers.“I think we are going to demonstrate today and tomorrow what’s at stake and how extreme and far right this nominee is.”He conceded that Democrats had no “magic” tool to block Barrett. They would, he said, use every procedural tool they have but “the politics are difficult here. Republicans are practically boasting that they have the votes.”Blumenthal said Democrats were “ultimately making our case to the American people”, to make them realize the impact Barrett’s nomination was likely to have. More
Amy Coney Barrett
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One of the drugs taken by Donald Trump that he has touted as a potential “cure” for coronavirus was developed using human cells originally obtained from an elective abortion, a practice repeatedly denounced by the president and many of his supporters.The drug is a monoclonal antibody cocktail developed by Regeneron. The president received an 8-gram infusion under a “compassionate use” exemption when he was hospitalized over the weekend after testing positive for Covid-19. There is no cure for Covid-19, and the drug is not approved.The stem cells used to develop the drug are known as HEK-293T cells, a line of cells used in laboratories. The cells were originally derived from an embryonic kidney after an elective abortion performed in the Netherlands in the 1970s.Trump has consistently sought to restrict abortion access, including most recently, when he nominated the conservative Catholic Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the supreme court last month. The anti-abortion movement is one of Trump’s most enthusiastic bases of support.The 2020 Republican party platform explicitly opposes embryonic stem cell research, and calls for a ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.Trump has already limited research using embryonic stem cells for ideological reasons. In 2019, his administration paused funding for government scientists to work on studies involving embryonic stem cells, affecting about $31m in research, according to Science Magazine.“We stopped the federal funding of fetal tissue research, which everybody felt was so important …” the president told supporters in January 2020. “We’re standing up to the pro-abortion lobby like never before.”The HEK-293T line of cells has been “immortalized”, meaning they divide freely in the lab. Regeneron said the company does not consider the cells “tissue”.“It’s how you want to parse it,” a Regeneron spokeswoman, Alexandra Bowie, told the MIT Technology Review. “But the 293T cell lines available today are not considered fetal tissue, and we did not otherwise use fetal tissue.”Development of the Regeneron antibody cocktail is supported by a $450m grant from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (Barda).The Susan B Anthony List, a leading US anti-abortion group, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. However, the anti-abortion movement has weighed in on other Covid-19 drugs in development. At least five Covid-19 vaccine candidates used either HEK-293T cells or a proprietary line of cells developed by Janssen from a 1985 elective abortion.In April, the influential US Conference of Catholic Bishops wrote to the US government to ask that it “incentivize” vaccine candidates developed without use of such cells.“It is critically important that Americans have access to a vaccine that is produced ethically: no American should be forced to choose between being vaccinated against this potentially deadly virus and violating his or her conscience,” the letter said, as reported by Science Magazine.Regeneron has worked with the US government to develop monoclonal antibody therapies for years. In 2018, researchers from Regeneron and the US government used the same line of stem cells in development of a therapy for the Ebola virus, according to a study published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.“Research using such stem cells allows Regeneron to model complex diseases, test new drug candidates and can help unlock new scientific insights that ultimately could lead to the discovery of new treatments for people with serious diseases,” Regeneron said in an April 2020 statement.Regeneron’s drug is not available to the public and has been tested on only 275 people to date. Therapies in the same class as Regeneron’s antibody cocktail cost on average more than $96,000 per course.The Trump administration has worked systematically to limit abortion access in the United States and abroad. Vice-President Mike Pence has said: “I long for the day Roe v Wade is sent to the ash heap of history,” referring to the US supreme court decision which has allowed for women to obtain legal abortions since 1973. More
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