WASHINGTON, D.C., October 13, 2020 — Today, during the questioning of Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, Barrett did nothing to contradict her writings and rulings or correct the record of President Trump’s comments that he would only nominate judges who will overturn the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and Roe v. Wade.
Alliance for Justice President Nan Aron released the following statement:
“It is even more abundantly obvious that Barrett was nominated because she will overturn the nation’s health care law, destroy protections for those with preexisting conditions, and rule against Roe v. Wade.
Of course — as she keeps saying instead of answering actual questions — Barrett didn’t have to make explicit promises about how she would rule. The administration knows from her record exactly how she would vote on cases involving health care and reproductive rights, among other issues.
Remarkably, Barrett also repeatedly claimed that her academic writing — which reflects the bulk of her legal experience — in no way speaks to how she would interpret the law, and, in so doing, seemingly dismissed the legitimacy of those writings altogether. When pressed, she claimed her criticism of the opinion upholding the ACA by Chief Justice Roberts was just an ‘academic critique.’
We know that’s not the case. That ‘critique’ helped propel her to the top of Trump’s shortlist and reflects what he and Senate Republicans are expecting when the Supreme Court rules on the constitutionality of the entire law next month.
At this moment, people are casting ballots and a pandemic is raging, claiming hundreds of thousands of lives and leaving millions of survivors with a chronic, ‘preexisting’ condition.
The American people don’t want a Supreme Court justice ready to take their health care away. They would prefer their elected officials focus on the pandemic and addressing systemic racism rather than this sham nomination process.”