A central component of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s outreach to pro-life voters has been his promise to appoint originalist, pro-life judges to the Supreme Court and other federal judicial vacancies, an issue that took on particular urgency when Justice Antonin Scalia, a pro-life stalwart, died in February.
In May, Trump released a list of likely Supreme Court nominees that won widespread praise from pro-life and originalist commentators, and now he has released ten more names, including a prominent, outspoken pro-life member of Congress:
Senator Mike Lee, R-Utah
Neil Gorsuch, a judge of the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals
Margaret Ryan, a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces
Edward Mansfield, a justice of the Iowa Supreme Court
Keith Blackwell, a justice of the Georgia Supreme Court
Charles Canady, a justice of the Florida Supreme Court
Timothy Tymkovich, chief judge of the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals
Amul Thapar, a judge of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky
Frederico Moreno, a judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida
Robert Young, chief justice of the Michigan Supreme Court
Lee’s is the most prominent name on the list. He has a 100% pro-life voting record. Last September, Lee was the only Senate Republican to publicly support Sen. Ted Cruz’s effort to defund Planned Parenthood through the appropriations process. His presence on the list is also notable, as Lee continues to identify with the #NeverTrump movement of right-of-center figures sitting out the presidential election in protest of the nominee. Lee’s office released a statement declaring, “This does not change Sen. Lee’s mind about Trump in any way whatsoever,” and that “Sen. Lee already has the job he wants.”
With Roe v. Wade, Doe v. Bolton, and Planned Parenthood v. Casey establishing a legal foundation routinely used to bring lawsuits against most state-level incremental pro-life laws — even laws that do not directly prohibit the early-term abortions expressly protected by Roe — overturning the Roe precedent and restoring the right of the people to vote on abortion policy for themselves through Congress or state legislatures is a prerequisite to ending abortion-on-demand in the United States.
Trump’s Democrat opponent, Hillary Clinton, has a 100% pro-abortion position and record, and has called Roe “the embodiment of our most fundamental rights,” which she would uphold by nominating pro-abortion judges. Abortion giant Planned Parenthood has endorsed Clinton, calling her a champion for “everything Planned Parenthood has believed in and fought for over the past 100 years.”
