In an age when Republicans barred Supreme Court nominations during the last election year when Obama was still in office, it’s less than surprising that they’re now going back on their word. With the election less than a month away, the urge to get Judge Amy Coney Barrett onto the Court and voting in conservatives’ favor is dire.
Trump’s nomination of Barrett was a transparent and fake-feminist move to appeal to those saddened by the loss of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Make no mistake: there is nothing “girl power” about wanting to restrict the rights of one’s fellow human beings.
While Barrett previously upheld the core rulings of cases like Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, being nominated by a president who wants them overturned could affect her answer.
In addition, she previously maintained we would likely see harsher restrictions on abortion similar to the Louisiana law slimly struck down by the Supreme Court only a few months ago.
Her confirmation could also threaten women’s rights under a potential ruling against the Affordable Care Act, which could diminish funding for women’s contraception coverage and “pre-existing condition” pregnancies. Not to mention, this threatens nearly 20 million Americans that could lose healthcare without Obamacare.
When it comes to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Trump’s other immigration policies, we should expect her to once again swing the court to the right considering she has already voted against protections for refugees facing deportation back to the life-threatening conditions they fought to escape from.
As a former clerk to conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, Barrett plans to follow in her mentor’s footsteps. She has pledged to follow Scalia’s strict “originalist” interpretation approach, a methodology which condemns the use of the Constitution outside of its literal interpretation.
This is really the first issue Barrett’s nomination poses to the future of the U.S. Supreme Court. Scalia’s thought process regarding the Constitution is far out-dated for the modern world, considering that when it was written, “We the People” meant a democracy of only white, wealthy slave-owning men.
Even further, Barrett’s eventual confirmation will set the court at a majority right, white and Catholic. This makes the bench even less representative of the current United States political landscape and less attuned to the public outcry for diversity than ever before.
Her confirmation would make her the sixth Catholic on a bench of nine judges. While Barrett, nor any nominee, shouldn’t be discounted for her faith, she should be questioned regarding her ability to separate church from state.
Barrett has been quoted telling her students that legal careers are “as but a means to an end…and that end is building the Kingdom of God.”
Not only has Barrett been linked to People of Praise, a Christian group associated with extremely toxic patriarchal views, she’s also previously accepted money from the Alliance Defending Freedom, a right-wing hate group which advocates for the criminalization of homosexuality.
Barrett has spoken to the Alliance multiple times since 2014.
Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination is a slap in the face and quite frankly a step backwards for American democracy. How can we ever move forward if we have Supreme Court Justices spending life-long terms stuck in the past?
Gabrielle Martinez is a 19-year-old mass communication sophomore from Gonzales.
