Barrett says no one talks about overturning the Brown decision. But she says all the questions she's received in her confirmation hearing about her views of abortion "indicates Roe doesn't fall in that category." She says it's "not a case that's universally accepted."
US President Donald Trump has said he would appoint justices who would overturn a woman's constitutional right to an abortion. Democrats worry that the court could have enough anti-abortion justices to threaten abortion rights if Barrett is confirmed.
She declined to say whether she would recuse herself from any election-related cases involving Trump, who nominated her to fill the seat of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and is pressing to have her confirmed before the November 3 election.
"Judges can't just wake up one day and say I have an agenda — I like guns, I hate guns, I like abortion, I hate abortion — and walk in like a royal queen and impose their will on the world," Barrett told the Senate Judiciary Committee during the second day of hearings.
"It's not the law of Amy," she said later. "It's the law of the American people."
Trump has said he wants a full nine-member court in place for any disputes arising from the heated election with Democrat Joe Biden. Barret testified she has not spoken to Trump or his team about that, saying to do so would be a "gross violation" of judicial independence. Pressed by panel Democrats, she declined to commit to recusing herself from post-election cases.
"I can't offer an opinion on recusal without short-circuiting that entire process," she said.
On her second day of hearings, Barrett was grilled in 30-minute segments by Democrats strongly opposed to Trump's nominee yet virtually powerless to stop her. Republicans are rushing towards confirmation along party lines.
A frustrated Senator Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the panel, all but implored the nominee to be more specific about how she would handle landmark abortion cases, including Roe v. Wade and the follow-up Pennsylvania case Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which confirmed it in large part.
"It's distressing not to get a good answer," Feinstein told the judge.
Barrett told the senator she could not pre-commit to an approach.
"I don't have an agenda to try to overrule Casey," the judge said. "I have an agenda to stick to the rule of law and decide cases as they come."
Republicans have been focused on defending Barrett and her Catholic faith against possible criticism concerning issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage, and chairman Lindsey Graham asked if she would be able to shelve her personal beliefs to adhere to law.
"I have done that," she said. "I will do that still."
Graham praised her the best possible nominee Trump could have chosen.
"I will do everything I can to make sure that you have a seat at the table. And that table is the Supreme Court," he said.
The Senate, led by Trump's Republican allies, is pushing Barrett's nomination to a quick vote before November 3, and ahead of the the latest challenge to the "Obamacare" Affordable Care Act, which the Supreme Court is to hear a week after the election.
Barrett distanced herself from her past writings perceived as critical of the Obama-era health care law, saying those pieces were not addressing specific aspects of the law as she would if confirmed to the court.
"I am not hostile to the ACA," Barrett told the senators. "I apply the law. I follow the law. You make the policy."
Senators probed her views on gun ownership and racial equity, at one point drawing an emotional response from the mother of seven, whose children include two adopted from Haiti, as she described watching the video of the death of George Floyd at the hands of police.
"Racism persists," she said, adding that Floyd's death had a "very personal" effect on her family and that she and her children wept over it. But she told Senator Dick Durbin that "making broader diagnoses about the problem of racism is kind of beyond what I'm capable of doing as a judge."
Overall, Barrett's conservative views are at odds with the late Ginsburg, the liberal icon whose seat Trump nominated her to fill.
- AP
