Ginsburg Successor Could Shift Law on Abortion Rights
A conservative successor to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg would move the U.S. Supreme Court closer to overturning the right to abortion, threaten the Affordable Care Act and, if confirmed quickly enough, strengthen President Donald Trump’s hand in legal disputes over the November election.
Ginsburg’s death Friday gives the president and his Republican allies an opening to leave a transformational mark on a court already shaped by two Trump appointments. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell vowed Friday to bring a new Trump nominee up for a vote, even though the election is less than seven weeks away.
Ginsburg, 87, was one of the court’s most liberal members. Her departure could bring the biggest ideological shift for a Supreme Court seat since Justice Clarence Thomas replaced Justice Thurgood Marshall in 1991. With Trump eyeing potential nominees in their 40s or early 50s, the impact could last for decades.
“It would monumentally change the direction of the court and turn back the advances in women’s rights and civil rights that Justice Ginsburg devoted her entire career to,” said Leah Litman, a constitutional law professor at the University of Michigan. “It is impossible to overstate how significant this could be.”
Democrats say the seat should remain open through the Nov. 3 election — and should be filled by the Joe Biden if he wins the presidency. Four years ago, McConnell blocked consideration of President Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland, saying the voters should have a say through that year’s election.
Abortion rights were already in doubt even before Ginsburg’s death. Although the court in June struck down a law that might have left Louisiana with only one clinic, the vote was 5-4, with Chief Justice John Roberts suggesting in his pivotal opinion he might support other restrictions. The Louisiana law would have required doctors who perform abortions to get admitting privileges at a local hospital.
Former President George H.W. Bush Lies In State At The U.S Capitol Rotunda
Brett KavanaughPhotographer: Jabin Botsford/Pool via Bloomberg
The future of abortion rights could now depend on Trump-appointed Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who dissented in the Louisiana case and said he would have ordered more lower-court fact-finding. During his confirmation hearings in 2018, Kavanaugh declined to say whether the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade abortion-rights ruling was correctly decided or whether he would vote to uphold it as a justice.
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