Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett defends the landmark vote to overturn Roe v. Wade in her forthcoming memoir. CNN got an advance look at Listening to the Law, in which Coney Barrett makes the case that the 1973 law "was getting ahead of the people" in regard to how they viewed abortion. A key line:
- "(T)he Court's role is to respect the choices that the people have agreed upon, not to tell them what they should agree to," she writes.
Coney Barrett asserts that the "evidence does not show that the American people have traditionally considered the right to obtain an abortion so fundamental to liberty that it 'goes without saying' in the Constitution." In fact, she adds, "the evidence cuts in the opposite direction. Abortion not only lacked long-standing protection in American law—it had long been forbidden." She cites the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's own criticisms of the precedent, though Ginsburg ultimately supported abortion rights.
The book is out on Sept. 9. CNN has more details from it, as Coney Barrett offers a look at the workings of the court, though without revealing internal deliberations. She also reflects on the sometimes deliberate ambiguity in Supreme Court opinions, describing the pragmatic need to find consensus, even at the expense of clarity. "Skirting issues is sometimes the price of finding common ground—though it's frustrating to delete points I'd like to make."
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