Just when it seemed all of the Republicans in Washington D.C. were on board with the Supreme Court’s consideration to reverse Roe v. Wade, one powerful Senator has decided to fight her own party. That Senator is Susan Collins, and she is not happy at all with Justices Kavanaugh or Gorsuch.
Senator Susan Collins released a statement condemning the Draft decision as well as alleging that Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh lied to her about the case during their interviews for the Supreme Court.
The statement read: “If this leaked draft opinion is the final decision and this reporting is accurate, it would be completely inconsistent with what Justice Gorsuch and Justice Kavanaugh said in their hearings and in our meetings in my office. Obviously, we won’t know each Justice’s decision and reasoning until the Supreme Court officially announces its opinion in this case.”
Sen. Collins has previously spoken out about her conversations with Justice Kavanaugh on the subject, telling CNN’s Dana Bash in 2020, “I do not believe Brett Kavanaugh will overturn Roe v. Wade.”
The Senator continued, “He noted that Roe had been reaffirmed 19 years later by Planned Parenthood vs. Casey and that it was precedent on precedent. He said it should be extremely rare that it should be overturned.”
The statement comes after a draft decision was leaked from the Supreme Court last night in which 5 Justices concluded that Roe V Wade was not based in the Constitution and therefor could not stand. The decision was written by Justice Samuel Alito and signed by Justices Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett.
If overturned, access to abortions would no longer be considered a federal right, with many Republican governors already coming forward with plans to end eliminate abortions within their own states once the decision has been made. It would not make abortions illegal, however, preserving the rights of individual states to decide for themselves how to view the procedure under their own laws.
This landmark decision will have implications nationwide, both in terms of what is considered healthcare as well as our upcoming election cycle. Congress could still codify abortion access regardless of the decision on Roe v Wade. Do you think this leak could shift elections in favor of Democrats? If they do win, will they make abortion access into law or will they just keep using it to rile people up?
