Judge Amy Coney Barrett is Donald Trump’s likely pick for a Supreme Court seat to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Following Ginsburg’s death last week, Trump said he plans to install a new Supreme Court justice just weeks away from the November 3 presidential election.
Multiple outlets reported Friday that Barrett, a conservative judge who has been on the US Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit – which covers cases in Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin – since 2017, is Trump’s likely pick to fill the spot.
The 48-year-old judge and mother of seven would be the youngest justice on the court if she is nominated. Here’s what we know about her:
Barrett has been, and may still be, a member of People of Praise, a group that describes itself as a “charismatic” Christian community and that previously referred to its female leaders as “handmaids.” This prompted comparisons to Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel “The Handmaid’s Tale,” in which women are enslaved.
At the time the comparisons surfaced, People of Praise, which believes in miraculous healing and speaking in tongues, claimed the term came from a Bible verse. The group no longer uses it.
A photograph and other references to Barrett were scrubbed from People of Praise’s website after Trump nominated her to the 7th Circuit in 2017, The New York Times reported, and the group declined to say whether Barrett was still a member.
Barrett said the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision ensuring women’s access to abortion was an “erroneous decision” in a 2003 article.
Ginsburg, on the other hand, had long stood in favour of the ruling, defending women’s right to choose since her confirmation to the bench in 1993. Following the justice’s death, conservatives signalled they would work to reverse the landmark decision, should they confirm a new conservative judge to the bench.
During Barrett’s 2017 Senate confirmation, more than a dozen women’s rights groups wrote to Judiciary Committee members urging them to oppose Barrett for her record of having “expressly opposed reproductive and women’s rights,” citing her 2003 article.
Barrett did, however, follow Supreme Court precedent last year in voting to uphold a Chicago law shielding women entering abortion clinics from unwelcome interactions with protesters and counsellors, according to The New York Times.
A 2017 letter signed by more than 20 LGBTQ groups opposed Barrett’s nomination to the 7th Circuit, saying her record on “civil rights issues are fundamentally at odds with the notion that LGBT people entitled to equality, liberty, justice and dignity under the law.”
The letter cited a speaking fee Barrett took from Alliance Defending Freedom, the largest anti-LGBTQ legal advocacy group in the nation. The ADF has defended forced sterilisation for transgender people and has been dubbed a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Centre.
Barrett later claimed she was unaware of the ADF’s extremist views.
