Visiting Professor Corey Brettschneider wrote an op-ed in the New York Times on the possible impact on abortion rights if President Trump’s nominee, Judge Brett Kavanaugh gets appointed in the Supreme Court.
President Trump is not the first Republican president to promise to appoint Supreme Court justices who would reverse Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision guaranteeing a woman’s right to an abortion. But this time the risk to that right is immediate. We should presume that Judge Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump’s nominee for the court, would be the deciding vote to abandon the right, unless he says otherwise.
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When senators ask Judge Kavanaugh about his views on abortion during his confirmation hearing, he is likely to invoke the traditional response, that nominees do not answer questions about matters that may come before the court.
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Would Judge Kavanaugh, an originalist focused on the historical meaning of the text, abide by a ruling like Roe that was not based in the Constitution’s original meaning?