Conservative legal activists watch SCOTUS abortion cases with worry over what happens if they lose

“There are many Conservatives who will wash their hands in the whole company if the Conservatives don’t do the right thing on these cases,” said Mike Davis, an adviser to the Senate Judiciary Committee that founded the Article III project, a conservative Justice advocacy.

The growing concern among socially conservative advocates and anti-abortion activists – which comes as two cases related to abortions are ruled by the Supreme Court in the coming months – comes from a series of episodes in which Republican-appointed judges have sided with their liberals Colleagues on LGBTQ rights, Affordable Care Act, and religious freedom cases – conservative groups who helped guide them through the Senate verification process and sparked tense debates within the Conservative movement over the nominee verification process.

Many of these groups viewed it as treason when Judge Neil Gorsuch, the first of three court officers for former President Donald Trump, passed the majority opinion in Bostock v. Clayton County authored Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity as Protected Classes added Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

More recently, Judges Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh alerted conservative court observers with their lines of interrogation during the oral argument against Texas in the United States, a case involving Texas law called SB 8, which prohibits most abortions after about six weeks of gestation. The two Trump officials “appeared to be openly skeptical of the structure of the Texas abortion law … arguments in the case.

Bovard, who serves as the senior director of policy at the Conservative Partnership Institute, told CNN that the two abortion-related cases will directly challenge the position of prominent conservative right-wing groups like the Federalist Society, which tend to have a significant impact on the judiciary Nomination process under exercise Republican administrations.

“You can no longer be the sole imprimatur of the Supreme Court when the conservative right-wing movement has led us to produce judges who cannot overturn what the conservative right-wing movement considers manifestly unconstitutional,” Bovard said.

While many court observers expect the Supreme Court to restrict the right to abortion in some form through the women’s health organization Dobbs v. Jackson, prominent Conservative figures from former Vice President Mike Pence to Judicial Crisis Network President Carrie Severino have begun to have expectations of an outcome, that fails to completely overtake Roe. “Legally, I think that this question is very simple, but you could have some judges who hang themselves over the question of the state decision,” said Severino, referring to the legal doctrine of the precedents.

“Ultimately, we are dealing with fallible people,” she added, arguing that “no matter how much scrutiny and effort is put into the process,” it is still possible that Trump-appointed judges could again disappoint the Conservatives.

In a speech Tuesday given by his own political organization, Advancing American Freedom, and anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony List, Pence said the Supreme Court should send Roe “to the ashes of history” while it recognizes As the Judges Will Do It is usually far from certain.

“Now more than ever, we need our Conservative majority in the United States Supreme Court to return the question of life to states and the people,” said Pence. “While I cannot say how the Supreme Court will rule, I can say with confidence today that the tide has turned for the pro-life movement.”

The former Vice President’s remarks could heighten concern among Conservatives, who already fear the court will miss its first opportunity in decades to completely abolish abortion law in the United States – causing major upheaval within the conservative right-wing movement and the buzz of the Donors to anti-abortion groups, who have long pledged new horizons in their struggle against reproductive rights, should the Supreme Court win a Conservative majority.

But instead of turning their anger on Pence and Trump, whose administration cemented the court’s conservative majority with the appointments of Kavanaugh, Barrett and Gorsuch, Davis said the Federalist Society would likely bear the brunt of the Conservative frustration. The group had previously come under fire from social conservatives who claim to prioritize judges who are reliable allies on regulatory issues but less so on social issues.

“You will say that the way the Federal Society selects judges is wrong. I understand this tendency because we have been disappointed so many times, but once you start normalizing judicial activism – right or left – we are will lose this fight in the long run, “said Davis.

Defenders of the current conservative approach to judicial appointments have denied efforts to impose litmus tests on candidates, such as the statement Senator Josh Hawley made before Barrett’s confirmatory hearings to “vote only for those Supreme Court candidates who Roe v. Wade was made the wrong decision. “Severino said the ultimate job of a judge is” not to be selected in order to advance certain policy outcomes. “Davis said the only litmus test for conservative judicial officials was” courage. ”

However, others say that if the Supreme Court disappoints conservatives with its forthcoming rulings, the prevailing doctrine is that nominees’ review process must be drastically revised – even if that means shattering the conservative right-wing movement in its current form. Proponents of such a change said that more stakeholders should be consulted in the review process and more in-depth questions about how potential judges might rule in specific cases should be encouraged.

“If the court gets this wrong, future administrations will have to consult a much larger group of people than before, and we need more people in the room asking more direct questions,” said Bovard.

Should the court refuse to end the legal right to abortion and allow legal challenges to a restrictive Texan law that bans the process after about six weeks, Pence and Trump would lose an important topic of conversation as they weigh separate White House commandments in 2024 . The duo have long lauded the trio of conservative Supreme Court appointments they oversaw as one of their crowning achievements – they used it to reassure anti-abortionists that they would likely undo Roe in her lifetime.

“Today we are gathering on the brink of a possibly new era in American history – an era in which all human life is again valued and respected,” Pence told the anti-abortion crowd Tuesday.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/30/politics/conservative-judges-legal-movement-abortion/index.html