Memo
NARAL Pro-Choice America Condemns Senator Lindsey Graham for Voting to Confirm Amy Barrett to the Supreme Court Mere Days Before Election
For Immediate Release: October 22, 2020
Contact: [email protected]
Washington, DC—Today, Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Lindsey Graham joined the other 11 Republican Senators on the Senate Judiciary Committee to jam through the nomination of Amy Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court. Today’s vote advances Barrett’s nomination to a cloture vote before heading to the U.S. Senate floor.
The illegitimate confirmation hearings took place as tens of millions of Americans cast their ballots for the next president. Throughout this sham process, the Republican Party has subverted the will of the American people at every turn, blatantly ignoring the majority of people in the United States who want the Senate to prioritize COVID-19 relief and let the people decide who should fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court.
Following today’s vote, NARAL Pro-Choice America President Ilyse Hogue released the following statement:
“Today, Senator Graham turned his back on democracy and sold out the women and families of South Carolina. Sen. Graham’s effort to jam through a Supreme Court nomination less than two weeks before Election Day—and as over 40 million Americans have already cast their ballots—is unprecedented, shameful, and speaks to the depths of his contempt for our fundamental freedoms. South Carolina voters will not forget how Graham rubber-stamped Trump and McConnell’s craven power grab and will hold him to account at the ballot box. The stakes are higher than ever before and Sen. Graham has proven time and again that he cannot be trusted to stand up for South Carolinians’ values or safeguard their rights.”
Amy 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 hearings. 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. She refused to answer whether states could make accessing abortion care a felony if Roe v. Wade is overturned or punish people seeking abortion care with the death penalty. She also refused to answer whether states could prosecute people for using contraception if Roe is overturned. 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.
A recent Quinnipiac poll found that a majority of likely voters in South Carolina agree with the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that established a woman’s right to an abortion—including 90% of Democrats and 66% of independent voters.
NARAL Pro-Choice America is in the midst of its largest-ever electoral program. It is designed to reach, persuade, and mobilize key voters, including driving thousands of calls to voters in South Carolina who are motivated by Senator Graham’s betrayal of their values and Trump and Republicans’ unyielding attacks on reproductive freedom. Come November, NARAL and its 2.5 million members are ready to flip the Senate and hold senators like Lindsey Graham accountable for putting their fundamental freedoms in jeopardy.
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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.