Press Release Georgia
Press Release
NARAL Pro-Choice America Denounces Senate Republicans’ Disgraceful Priorities as Amy Coney Barrett Confirmation Hearings Begin
For Immediate Release: Monday, October 12, 2020
Contact: [email protected]
With millions of votes already cast, no nomination should be considered until after Inauguration Day
Washington, DC — This morning, the Senate Judiciary Committee began confirmation hearings for Amy Coney Barrett. More than 7 million voters have already cast their ballots and less than a month remains until Election Day. Still, Senate Republicans continue to prioritize ramming through another Trump justice to the U.S. Supreme Court instead of addressing the suffering the COVID-19 pandemic is causing to our health, safety, and economic well-being.
NARAL Pro-Choice America President Ilyse Hogue released the following statement in response:
“Two things are clear: Barrett poses a clear and present danger to our fundamental rights and this hearing is part of an illegitimate and craven power grab that could affect our Courts for a long time. Plowing ahead with the confirmation of a Supreme Court justice this close to Election Day is an attack on our democracy that we won’t forget. It’s disgraceful for Senate Republicans to continue this partisan charade to maintain control no matter the results of November’s election, all while refusing to help people struggling in the midst of the still-raging pandemic. No confirmation should be considered until after Inauguration Day, period.”
Amy Coney Barrett’s record on reproductive freedom is clear. She has suggested that Roe v. Wade is an “erroneous decision.” She also signed onto an ad calling the landmark ruling “barbaric” and failed to disclose it in the documents submitted to the Senate ahead of her confirmation hearing. She sided with states trying to restrict abortion access, joined anti-choice groups in opposing the Affordable Care Act’s birth control benefit, and is connected to a group that calls for criminalizing in vitro fertilization. Her nomination comes after Trump’s promise to the Radical Right to only consider jurists hostile to reproductive freedom. It’s a vow he ran on in 2016 and doubled down on in a recent campaign letter to the anti-choice movement.
Rather than letting the American people decide, Trump and Mitch McConnell are teeing up one of the most rushed confirmation processes in history in a massive power grab. For the last four years, the Trump administration, Mitch McConnell, and Senate Republicans have waged war on our fundamental rights and our democracy. That’s why we know we must do all that we can to flip the Senate, expand our majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, and send Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris to the White House.
With Election Day just weeks away, NARAL Pro-Choice America is in the final push of its unprecedented $34.7 million political program. Last week, NARAL Freedom Fund launched new GOTV tactics in the key U.S. Senate battleground states of Arizona, Iowa, Georgia, Maine, Minnesota, Michigan, and North Carolina. Paid digital ads will run through the remainder of the election alongside a robust mail program, and peer-to-peer texting.
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For over 50 years, NARAL Pro-Choice America and its network of state affiliates and chapters have fought to protect and advance reproductive freedom—including access to abortion, contraception, and paid family leave—for every body. NARAL is powered by its more than 2.5 million members from every state and congressional district in the country, representing the 7 in 10 Americans who believe every person should have the freedom to make the best decision for themselves about if, when, and how to raise a family.