By Maria Gallagher, Legislative Director
It is all the more fascinating in the re-telling.
I am talking about the unprecedented drama that surrounded the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh as a Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court
Justice on Trial: the Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Supreme Court provides a brilliant analysis of the behind-the-scenes power struggle that accompanied the most contentious Supreme Court fight in modern history.
Authors Mollie Hemingway and Carrie Severino expertly demonstrate how a process that should be dignified and exemplary devolved into character assassination of a man who had sought to bring honor to the courts his entire professional life.
Hemingway and Severino recount this cautionary tale in vivid detail. Kavanaugh’s emotional pain during the confirmation hearings literally leaps off the page.
“Throughout my life, I’ve devoted huge efforts to encouraging and promoting the careers of women. I will put my record up against anyone’s male or female,” Kavanaugh said during his contentious hearing.
“I love coaching more than anything I’ve ever done in my whole life, but thanks to what some of you on this side of the committee have unleashed, I may never be able to coach again.”
What pro-abortion Democrats had unleashed were a series of sensational, unsubstantiated allegations accusing the judge of sexual assault when he was a teenager. The most publicized of the claims was that of Christine Blasey Ford, who charged that Kavanaugh had attempted to rape her at a teenage house party. None of the people who Ford said had been present at the party could corroborate her claims.
Addressing Ford’s claims during a dramatic Capitol Hill hearing, Kavanaugh stated, “The other night (my wife) Ashley and my daughter Liza said their prayers, and little Liza—all of ten years old—said to Ashley, ‘We should pray for the woman.’ That’s a lot of wisdom from a ten-year-old. We mean no ill will.”
Hemingway and Severino identify abortion as being a key issue at the heart of the controversy surrounding the Supreme Court appointment. They point out that, as soon as Justice Anthony Kennedy, considered a swing vote on abortion, announced his retirement, CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin tweeted, “Abortion will be illegal in twenty states in 18 months.”
As much as pro-lifers wish the tragedy of legal abortion would end today, we realize we are in this struggle for the long haul. We do not know when the Supreme Court will right a profound wrong and restore legal protection for preborn children.
One thing we do know—the vitriol and fury unleashed against any Supreme Court nominee President Donald Trump would make coarsen our culture and wound our society.
As President Trump stated, “On behalf of our nation, I want to apologize to Brett and the entire Kavanaugh family for the terrible pain and suffering you have been forced to endure. Those who step forward to serve our country deserve a fair and dignified evaluation, not a campaign of political and personal destruction based on lies and deception.
“What happened to the Kavanaugh family violates every notion of fairness, decency, and due process,” the President said.
And, one could add, fairness, decency, and due process are also all violated under the abortion regime created by the High Court.