Amy Coney Barrett’s Harsh Decision History With Sexual Violence Survivors Revealed
As federal judge Amy Coney Barrett spent all week dodging questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee during her Supreme Court Confirmation hearing, another disturbing fact has arisen about the conservative nominee.
During her time as an appellate judge, Barrett overruled a judgment that gave millions in damage to a pregnant 19-year-old jail inmate who was repeatedly raped by a prison guard. “After a 19-year-old pregnant prison inmate was repeatedly raped by a prison guard, Amy Coney Barrett ruled that the county responsible for the prison could not be held liable because the sexual assaults fell outside of the guard’s official duties. Her judgment demonstrates a level of unconscionable cruelty that has no place on the high court,” Kyle Herrig, president of the watchdog group Accountable.US, told Salon.
Survivors of sexual violence deserve a better Supreme Court justice than Amy Coney Barrett
The nominee holds extreme positions on areas of the law on which victims of sexual assault depend and we can’t afford the drastic upending of these support systems. https://t.co/k4GC0JsNqa
— Jon Cooper 🇺🇸 (@joncoopertweets) October 18, 2020
Barrett has also neglected to disclose both a series of talks about anti-abortion while being a professor at Notre Dame and a letter she wrote calling for the dismantling of Roe v. Wade and the criminalization of IVF. Also, prior to the Affordable Care Act, being a victim of rape or sexual assault was a plausible reason to get denied coverage due to it being a “preexisting condition.” Barrett has stated her desire to overrule the ACA, meaning that victims will once again have the fear of being denied coverage. She also believes Title IX anti-discrimination protections should not be extended to transgender students, claiming that it’s a “strain on the text of the statute;” she also has stated that sexual orientation is a “preference.”
Amy Coney Barrett served on the board of a school “that effectively barred admission to children of same-sex parents and made it plain that openly gay and lesbian teachers weren’t welcome in the classroom.”https://t.co/tiSRRQCTEm
— Demand Justice (@WeDemandJustice) October 21, 2020
What’s more, Barrett will not denounce climate change, stating the 2018 ruling by the Supreme Court finding it “controversial” as her reason for stating the subject as “inappropriate” for her to “opine” on. She also did not recuse herself from cases involving oil companies; her father was a leading attorney for Shell for decades.
We sincerely hope the Supreme Court will make decisions that benefit sexual assault survivors, with or without Barrett.
