Amy Coney Barrett, Women, and Me - by Greer Clem

Today’s hurt feels different than the Kavanaugh hurt. That was an up-in-arms, fist-in-the-air kind of hurt. Today’s is quieter and darker.

There is still the blinding rage at the hypocrisy of pushing through a Supreme Court nomination 8 days before a presidential election when Mitch McConnell blocked the nomination of Merrick Garland 8 months before the 2016 election. There is the lingering sting of McConnell’s “nuclear rule,” the implementation of which allows for an override of the standard two-thirds, 60 vote Senate majority and allows instead for a 51 simple majority vote. There is mourning still to be done for the late Justice Ginsburg, much of which was taken over by panic and despair as to who would take her seat. But the hurt of today feels more internal, farther from the surface. That is because the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett represents a much more legitimate threat to basic human rights than did the confirmation of Kavanaugh. There is no swing vote now, no Chief Justice Roberts to concur in June Medical, preventing abortion laws from becoming all the more restrictive. We are now faced with a 6-3 majority in favor of the conservative vote. And when I say conservative, I don’t mean the quaint “fiscally conservative, in favor of small government” type. I mean pro-life, anti-choice, anti-gay marriage, anti-trans, hard core conservative. The dissent in Obergefell will become the norm. Roe v. Wade may fall. The Affordable Care Act, originally upheld as constitutional under the tax and spend clause, may be erased.

There have been those who say the panic at Barrett’s nomination is overblown, that she is not necessarily guaranteed to vote to overturn Roe. There have been others who balk at her views on stare decisis, that is the Court’s commitment to uphold its own precedent. Here is what we do know for certain: in 2006, Barrett and her husband signed their names to an ad in The South Bend Tribune which called for overturning Roe v. Wade and its “barbaric legacy.” In a 2013 article, she wrote: “I tend to agree with those who say that a justice’s duty is to the Constitution and that it is thus more legitimate for her to enforce her best understanding of the Constitution rather than a precedent she thinks clearly in conflict with it.” We know for certain that she was a member of a “right to life” organization connected with a pregnancy crisis center which has been criticized for masquerading as an abortion clinic so as to convince women to keep their pregnancies. (Such stories are commonplace with pregnancy crisis centers). We know these things. These are not the question mark issues, the areas in which we could hem and haw as to which way she would vote. We know these things to be true and we cannot hide from them, nor can we ignore their implications as she takes her seat on the bench.

And that’s when it hit me - the real reason part of this hurt felt so personal: Amy Coney Barrett is a woman. So much of the solace I have sought since the 2016 election has been in the company of women. For many of the women in my life, the threat of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and the realization of his presidency has meant a feminist rebirth, a renewed commitment to equality. It’s also meant that inhibitions we previously held, times where we may have held our tongue, have been cast aside. We’re vocal, we ask questions, we stand up and make our voices heard. We seek companionship among like-minded women, finding a reservoir of courage and compassion among them. We have elevated the voices of AOC, Ayanna Presley, and Elizabeth Warren. When Kamala Harris said to Mike Pence “I’m speaking,” we felt every single word in our bones and we reveled in it. So much of the hope that has sustained me over the past four years has come from these small moments with women I love and admire.

To lose one of my heroes, one of the women I admire most, was hard enough. But to watch Ginsburg’s seat be filled by a woman, a woman I now have to face as an adversary, has been a unique twist of the knife. Because the awkward truth is I am more comfortable confronting men than I am women. It is more inherent that I will go up against men, that they will not value or understand my life experiences in the given way a woman would. I have been raised to prepare for this, braced myself in my academic career and job interviews for the bias I will undoubtedly face. But I wasn’t prepared for this. No one ever sat me down and told me there would be women who wanted to take away my rights. It’s been a blind spot in my preparation and in my life experiences, or maybe I’ve just been blessed with the company of progressive females. But I wasn’t ready for this day, the day when my adversary would look a lot like me, would have even faced many of the same obstacles. How can I accept this? Is it wrong of me to view her as an outsider, not one of us? Does that make me just as bad for judging her personal views so harshly? Is that the armor I need to wear to do what must be done to protect my rights and the rights of those I love?

I don’t have the answers to these questions; I’m just now realizing how many questions there really are. But I do know this: there are ugly fights ahead and what carries me forward is the strength of women. It is their resilience and introspection, their determination - and we won’t falter in the face of this new adversary.