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I cannot access the article but it's not surprising.
Where there's a will, there's a way
ARTICLE:The defining feature of Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing was her refusal to answer a single question that might actually reveal her opinion, as a judge or a person, on some of the most consequential matters to Americans. In particular, Barrett repeatedly claimed she couldn’t possibly say anything about the Affordable Care Act or abortion, issues that will no doubt come before her in the 40-plus years she’s expected to sit on the court—and probably sooner rather than later.
That’s not because she doesn’t have extremely strong opinions on these matters but because she does—that’s why Republicans nominated her, knowing full well that when a case regarding Obamacare is heard in November, they can reliably expect that she’ll vote to overturn it, and that should a challenge to Roe v. Wade come up, she’ll do the same. Barrett wrote a law review article criticizing the Supreme Court for upholding the ACA’s individual mandate in 2012, in particular going after Chief Justice John Roberts, who looks like a flaming liberal in comparison. In addition, she has praised her mentor, the late Justice Antonin Scalia, for his dissenting opinion in King v. Burwell, which upheld the law’s subsidies as constitutional. As for abortion, Barrett wrote in one court opinion that the procedure is “always immoral”; dissented in Box v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky Inc., arguing to uphold an Indiana law requiring doctors to notify the parents of a minor seeking an abortion; and dissented in the case of Commissioner of the Indiana State Department of Health v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky Inc., arguing in favor of a law requiring that fetal remains be buried or cremated. And, as we heard during her three days before the Senate Judiciary Committee, she signed a letter calling for the end of the “barbaric” Roe v. Wade.
All of which makes one of her nonanswers to a written follow-up question from Senator Sheldon Whitehouse extremely chilling. Specifically, the one in which she says, “As a sitting judge and as a judicial nominee, it would not be appropriate for me to offer an opinion on abstract legal issues or hypotheticals” in response to the question “Under an originalist theory of interpretation, would there be any constitutional problem with a state making abortion a capital crime, thus subjecting women who get abortions to the death penalty?”
Obviously, claiming that she can’t answer hypothetical questions has been Barrett’s schtick throughout this entire process and, in some instances, it might actually be appropriate to say as much. But not when the question is “can a state sentence a woman to death for getting an abortion,” unless of course she thinks there might somehow be a scenario in which the answer is yes!
Anyway, Barrett was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, and today kicked off three days of debate on the Senate floor ahead of a vote scheduled for Monday. Following the vote, Barrett is expected to be confirmed for a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the land, barring something crazy happening like “moderate” Republicans thinking maybe women shouldn’t be executed for choosing what to do with their own bodies.