During Gorsuch's confirmation hearing in early 2017, he refused to take a position on
Roe. He told Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., that he "would have walked out the door" had Trump asked him to overturn
Roe.
Gorsuch took the uncontroversial line that
Roe is a precedent. Precedent is the "anchor of law," he said. "It is the starting place for a judge."
"
I would tell you that Roe v. Wade, decided in 1973, is a precedent of the United States Supreme Court. It has been reaffirmed," he said. "A good judge will consider it as precedent of the U.S. Supreme Court worthy as treatment of precedent like any other."
Gorsuch acknowledged that the Supreme Court had held that a fetus is not a person for the purposes of the 14th Amendment's due process clause, a legal underpinning of
Roe v. Wade.
"Do you accept that?" asked Durbin.
"That is the law of the land. I accept the law of the land, senator, yes," Gorsuch replied.
------------------------------
"much was made of a private meeting between Kavanaugh and Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who said the nominee had told her he
considered Roe to be "settled law."
But Kavanaugh stopped short of repeating that line in his hearing, instead focusing on
Roe's status as Supreme Court precedent.
"It is settled as a precedent of the Supreme Court, entitled the respect under principles of stare decisis," he said. "The Supreme Court has recognized the right to abortion since the 1973
Roe v. Wade case. It has reaffirmed it many times."
-----------------------------
Perhaps the most revealing moment for Barrett came as she was being questioned by Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., who asked if Barrett considered
Roe to be a "super-precedent."
Barrett answered by defining super-precedent as "cases that are so well settled that no political actors and no people seriously push for their overruling."
"And I'm answering a lot of questions about
Roe, which I think indicates that
Roe doesn't fall in that category," she said.
"
Roe is not a super-precedent because calls for its overruling have never ceased. But that doesn't mean that
Roe should be overruled. It just means that it doesn't fall in the small handful of cases like
Marbury v. Madison and
Brown v. Board that no one questions anymore," she added.
-----------------------------
But that was different, they're not really trying to gut SS and Medicare..............
Democrats say several conservative justices lied to the Senate in their confirmations. But nominees have long taken a careful line on Roe, acknowledging it as a precedent without saying much more.
www.npr.org
