Amy Coney Barrett calls Roe v Wade 'free-floating' decision that judges 'read into' Constitution
Justice Amy Coney Barrett called out flaws in Roe v. Wade in a new interview while discussing her vote to overturn the landmark 1973 Supreme Court ruling.
"The problem with Roe was … there's nothing in the Constitution, certainly, that speaks to abortion, that speaks to medical procedures," Barrett told Bishop Robert Barron of Minnesota on his show "Bishop Barron Presents."
"The best defense of Roe — the commonly thought defense of Roe — was that it was grounded in the word ‘liberty,' in the due process clause, that we protect life, liberty and property, [and] it can't be taken away without due process of law," Barrett said.
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"That word ‘liberty’ can't be an open vessel or an empty vessel in which judges can just read into it whatever rights they want because, otherwise, we lose the democracy in our democratic society," she continued.
Barrett said her personal problem with Roe stemmed from the justices' "free-floating" decision that "read into the Constitution."
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The Trump appointee, who filled the seat of late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 2020, sided with Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Chief Justice John Roberts for the majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health in 2022, overturning Roe v. Wade and declaring that the Constitution does not confer the right to abortion.
Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan dissented.
Barrett argued that the Constitution is difficult to amend because it reflects a "supermajority consensus," adding that the rights and structural guarantees made in the Constitution are ones already approved by the vast majority of the American people.
"Roe told Americans what they should agree to, rather than what they have already agreed to in the Constitution," she said.