Senator Blackburn's Stunning Confrontation of Biden Nominee

President Biden's Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson has given little indication of how she feels on the issue of life in her confirmation hearings at the Senate, but she was crystal clear in a prior amicus brief that she wrote in 2001 when she used this type of rhetoric about pro-lifers in an abortion buffer zone case:

"Few American citizens who seek to exercise constitutionally protected rights must run a gauntlet through a hostile, noisy crowd of "in-your-face" protestors."

ACLJ Senior Counsel CeCe Heil explained what this language means:

"The language is very specific. The fact that they use "hostile, noisy crowd of in-your-face protestors." There is a way to make that point without using that degrading type of language, you know, that pro-life women are these hostile, out-of-control people. Instead of, I am a pro-life woman, and I choose to treat people in love and kindness. So, you can't group me into this crowd, which is what they are trying to do."

Judge Jackson tried to walk around this rhetoric from her brief during the line of questioning at the confirmation hearing with Senator Marsha Blackburn (TN). When Sen. Blackburn asked her how she justifies that type of degrading rhetoric against pro-life women, Judge Jackson responded:

"I was an associate at a law firm, and I had appellate experience and in the context of my law firm, I was asked to work on a brief concerning a buffer zone issue in Massachusetts at the time. There were laws protecting women who wanted to enter clinics and there was a First Amendment question about the degree to which there had to be room around them to enter the clinic."

Sen. Blackburn reiterated her question and asked Judge Jackson if she looks at pro-life women in the way she previously described in the brief as "hostile, noisy, and in-your-face." To which she replied:

"Senator, that was a statement in a brief made – an argument for my client. It is not the way I think of or characterize people."

To be clear, that is still the view she chose to use to advocate on behalf of her client. We don't share that view. The ACLJ filed an amicus brief opposing Judge Jackson's brief back in 2001.

Today's full Sekulow broadcast is complete with even more analysis of Judge Jackson's confirmation hearings and her view on pro-lifers.