#597 - Peace & Life: SCOTUS Nominees - February 4, 2022
Potential Supreme Court Nominees on Our Issues
Every time there’s a new nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, we offer an edition detailing their experience on our issues. We need help, since online searches only go so far. Information on any of the women speculated as possible nominees can be sent to CLNeditors@gmail.com.
What we do know: Ketanji Brown Jackson got the endorsement of NARAL Pro Choice America for appellate judge, and filed an amicus brief in McGuire v. Reilly supporting a floating 6-foot buffer around those approaching abortion facilities. But she also sat on the board of a Maryland school that opposes abortion. On the death penalty, she served on a sentencing commission, but googling doesn’t yet show what happened there. She clerked for Stephen Breyer, who opposes the death penalty.
Leondra Kruger got several appeals of death penalty cases in her position on the California Supreme Court, and most resulted in unanimous decisions to let the execution go forward.
This is a little information on just two of the suggested candidates, so we’ll be on the lookout for more.
Top contenders, according to speculation:
Not the First Potential Black Woman Nominee
See stories in The Washington Post and Newsweek, among others: When George W. Bush had an opening, he was considering Janice Rogers Brown (pictured). But her nomination was blocked by a threatened filibuster by then-Senator Joe Biden. Samuel Alito was chosen instead. This tarnishes Biden’s bragging about appointing the first Black woman; we might have had one 15 years earlier.
Here we have a subtle form of racism: a Black woman is a fine pick if she follows your judicial philosophy, but if you have to tolerate someone who has different ideas, then better it be a White man representing them than a Black woman.
There were undoubtedly judicial decisions where we would have disagreed with how Brown ruled, but the demographic features of a judge makes no difference on that point.
Inasmuch as being against Roe v. Wade was a concern, a prevalent view among Roe proponents was that Black women shouldn’t be involved in overturning or limiting it. Better to keep the pro-life perspective seen as a white male imposition.
Women Deserve Better
Our member group Feminists for Life has new entries into its series of practical tips for mothers:
Our Latest Blog Post
Lisa Stiller shares her personal journey in Life as a Pro-life Progressive.
Quotation of the Week
Michael Sean Winters
National Catholic Reporter, January 21, 2022
Here is a challenge for our conservative friends: Acknowledge that poverty remains the leading abortifacient in our country and throughout the world, and bring forward policies that will ameliorate it.
How can a morally serious person give credence to the theological piffle offered by groups like Catholics for Choice? It is astonishing that they seem not to notice the moral laziness of the slogan "my body, my choice" after watching anti-vaxxers embrace the very same slogan for two years. . .
Here is a challenge for our liberal friends: Liberals rightly have been keen to call out historic racism and demand a reckoning. Why is the racist eugenicism of Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, overlooked? . . .
We can witness to the consistency of our moral beliefs by clinging to the consistent ethic of life, the only, repeat only, morally and intellectually serious position I have encountered in researching and writing about the issue of abortion for 25 years.