AMy coney barret appointed to the us supreme court

Who Is Amy Coney Barrett?

By Ayesha Taj

Shortly after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, President Donald Trump nominated law professor Amy Coney Barret as the next Supreme Court Justice. Trump reportedly once said he was "saving her" for the moment when Justice Ginsburg died and a position on the nine-member Supreme Court was available. Her anti-abortionist and pro-gun record along with her opposition to the Affordable Care Act have made her a favorite among right-wingers. 48-year-old Barrett is the youngest justice on the Supreme Court and could serve for more than three decades.

Barrett has been compared to former Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, who was famous for his conservative approach to constitutional interpretation. Barrett, like Scalia, looks strictly at the text of the Constitution and try to apply the original intentions of the framers.

The Supreme Court nominee’s views on women’s rights and abortion have been subject to harsh criticism by the left. She is a member of a conservative Christian faith group called People of Praise. Newsweek reported that the group "teaches that husbands should assume authority as the head of the household.” Fellow devout Christians were outraged when Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein questioned Barrett’s ability to keep her faith separate from judicial decisions during a 2017 hearing, stating "The dogma lives loudly within you, and that's of concern.” Barrett responded, "If you're asking whether I take my Catholic faith seriously, I do, though I would stress that my personal church affiliation or my religious belief would not bear on the discharge of my duties as a judge."

Barrett has also denounced Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court's 1973 abortion decision. However, in 2016, she suggested that the court will most likely leave the basic right to abortion in place while allowing states the ability to make abortion “difficult to obtain.” Barrett said regarding the issue, "Roe's core holding that women have a right to an abortion, I don't think that would change. But I think the question of whether people can get very late-term abortions, you know, how many restrictions can be put on clinics, I think that will change." She also voted to uphold the Trump administration’s "public charge" rule, which makes it more difficult for immigrants seeking green cards if they rely on public benefits, food stamps or housing vouchers.

Her nomination has also given Republicans a long-awaited conservative majority in the Supreme Court. Organizations such as Planned Parenthood have expressed disapproval for the decision to nominate a judge whose religious beliefs could interfere with her work. Barrett once stated in a Twitter post, “[a] legal career is but a means to an end … and that end is building the Kingdom of God.”