Judd Legum On SCOTUS Nominee Brett Kavanaugh's Big Abortion Mistake

According to Popular.info founder Judd Legum, Brett Kavanaugh could reshape the law, and America, for decades if he is confirmed to the Supreme Court — and his confirmation is dependent on two votes.

“To vote for Kavanaugh, [Susan] Collins and [Lisa] Murkowski need plausible deniability. They don’t want to be held responsible for ending the constitutional right to abortion in America,” Legum said. “Kavanaugh knows this and attempted to skirt direct questions about whether he would overturn the seminal case of Roe v. Wade. But then, he made a big mistake.”

There are two kinds of constitutional rights, the ones that are written directly in the Constitution like freedom of speech called “enumerated rights,” and “unenumerated rights” that are not explicitly written. Among these unenumerated rights is the right to privacy and, from that, the Court found a right to an abortion.

Kavanaugh told Senator Ted Cruz when considering when an unenumerated right was legitimate he would apply something called the Glucksberg test.

“This sounds very boring but this was Kavanaugh’s big mistake,” Legum said. “In 2017, he gave a speech in which he said, unequivocally, that Roe, and other major cases that recognized the right to an abortion, like [Planned Parenthood v. Casey] would fail the Glucksberg test.”

Because of this, there is really no mystery whether Kavanaugh would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade.