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-abortion availability
-planned parenthood

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-her beliefs
-her background
-legitimacy of judicial authority
-whats at stake

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Amy Coney Barrett's confirmation hearing starts Monday, and the question of what her appointment could mean for women's rights in the U.S. will hang over it. But feminism and gender equality have wide-ranging definitions, depending on who you ask. We'll talk about the conversation surrounding Judge Barrett's nomination.

Erika Bachiochi, legal scholar specializing in Equal Protection jurisprudence, feminist legal theory, Catholic social teaching, and sexual ethics. Senior Fellow at the Abigail Adams Institute in Cambridge, MA. Author of a forthcoming book, "The Rights of Women: Reclaiming a Lost Vision." (@erikabachiochi)

Fatima Goss-Graves, President and CEO of the National Women's Law Center. Co-founder of the Time's Up Legal Defense Fund, which connects those who experience sexual misconduct in the workplace or in trying to advance their career with legal and public relations assistance. (@FGossGraves)

Politico: " Amy Coney Barrett: A New Feminist Icon" - "Amy Coney Barrett has been praised for her topflight legal mind, even by those who disagree with her. At 48 years old, she is poised to help shape the court for a generation or more. But that's not all her elevation to the high court has the potential to accomplish. Barrett's expected confirmation should serve as a catalyst for rethinking the most powerful social movement in the past half century: feminism."

The Los Angeles Times: " Barrett tied to religious group that ex-members say subordinates women" - "Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett has close ties to a charismatic Christian religious group that holds that men are divinely ordained as the "head" of the family and faith. Former members of the group, called People of Praise, say it teaches that wives must submit to the will of their husbands."

The New Republic: " The Elite Sisterhood of Amy Coney Barrett" - "Sometimes the reason 'women's rights' feel so tenuous is because the question 'which women?' is as central as it is overlooked. The threat Amy Coney Barrett would pose to women as a Supreme Court justice far exceeds abortion. That she was nominated by President Trump to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, as a kind of fuck-you to those who saw Ginsburg as legal abortion's last defense, isn't helping clarify the potential damage Barrett could do. Any opposition to Barrett is about her faith, the kind of woman she is, her defenders say."

USA Today: " Conservative women know what it's like to be mocked. We'll defend Amy Coney Barrett." - "After interning in the summer of 2004 for my home state senator in Washington, D.C., I returned to the University of Virginia looking for a group of women who wanted to talk about the issues of the day and welcomed a more conservative perspective. There was a women's club, a Women's Studies department, and even a Women's Center at UVA. But, because I am a conservative woman, my ideas were not fully welcome at the traditional women's institutions on campus."

The Lily: " Women on both sides flocked to the Supreme Court after Amy Coney Barrett's nomination - and they're just getting started" - "Amy Wilson's plans to protest came together quickly. Last Wednesday, the 37-year-old drove to the Supreme Court from Silver Spring, Md., to pay her respects to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in person. The justice, who died Sept. 18 at 87, was a fierce defender of women's rights, and 'what she stood for means a lot for myself and others,' Wilson says. A friend joined her at the courthouse to mourn; Wilson told her to let her know if she heard of any more events at the Supreme Court in the coming days."

The New York Times: " For Conservative Christian Women, Amy Coney Barrett's Success Is Personal" - "Ruth Malhotra had just arrived in Florida for a vacation with some girlfriends from high school and their families when President Trump was scheduled to introduce his next nominee for the Supreme Court on Saturday afternoon. A college football game was on the television at their rented beach house. 'Turn off football and turn on C-SPAN!' she told her friends. 'We've got to watch this; this is historic.'"

New York Magazine: " Amy Coney Barrett and the Triumph of Phyllis Schlafly" - "Consider her out of context, and Amy Coney Barrett looks like a personal and professional success. A wife, a mother of seven, and now maybe a Supreme Court justice, Donald Trump's new nominee seemingly has it all. Barrett, Trump said while announcing the nomination on Saturday, is a "towering intellect," an accomplished woman and loving mother who possesses "one of our nation's most brilliant and gifted legal minds."

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What Amy Coney Barrett's Supreme Court Nomination Means For Women's Rights

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Amy Coney Barrett's confirmation hearing starts Monday, and the question of what her appointment could mean for women's rights in the U.S. will hang over it. But feminism and gender equality have wide-ranging definitions, depending on who you ask. We'll talk about the conversation surrounding Judge Barrett's nomination.

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The threat posed by Judge Barrett: Abortion doesn’t equal equality, equality doesn’t equal abortion

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The threat posed by Judge Barrett: Abortion doesn’t equal equality, equality doesn’t equal abortion

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The confirmation of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett may be a threat to women's reproductive rights and health. The first case she is set to hear on Nov. 10 will determine whether the Affordable Care Act continues on.

That's just one reason Brittany Fonteno of Planned Parenthood of Southern New England is afraid that Barrett's confirmation could threaten the health and rights of women for generations. Planned Parenthood provides sex education and health care in many underserved communities, and the Affordable Care Act is how many of the women it serves get their insurance, said Fonteno.

"We are talking about brown and Black communities, immigrant communities, undocumented, people with low income and of course women and women's ability to control their own bodies and their future," said Fonteno.

Barrett has previously voiced opposition to the Supreme Court's decision that legalized abortion. While a University of Notre Dame law professor, Barrett signed an ad that stated, "it's time to put an end to the barbaric legacy of Roe v. Wade."

Liz Gustafson of the NARAL Pro-Choice Connecticut said Connecticut is one of the few states that codified Roe v. Wade. This means women's access to abortion services would remain in effect even if the national law were overturned. Although Barrett brings new urgency to the situation, Gustafson said it isn't a new fight.

"Connecticut must take bold and creative action, as reproductive freedom isn't only about the court or legislature, but it's about the people and their right to decide if, when and how to start their families in healthy communities," said Gustafson.

The legality of abortions doesn't equal access, said Gustafson. She said the fight continues in Connecticut to extend reproductive freedom to people of every race and economic status.

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Women's Groups Rate Amy Coney Barrett A Threat To Reproductive Health

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The confirmation of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett may be a threat to women's reproductive rights and health. The first case she is set to hear on Nov. 10 will determine whether the Affordable Care Act continues on.

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Republicans' rush to fill the vacant U.S. Supreme Court seat before the election is a terrible threat to Black people's civil rights and the health of our communities.

In her 27 years on the Supreme Court, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a champion of civil rights. During those same years, though, Republican presidents and senators moved the court further and further away from its duty to protect racial equity and the rights of working people.

During the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, we counted on the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold the constitutional principle of equality under law. We have counted on federal courts to enforce the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act, federal laws that finally put the force of law behind the idea that Black people are part of the Constitution's "We, the people."

But the Supreme Court we have today is a long way from the Court that did away with legal segregation, a long way from the court that upheld civil rights laws that were won with the blood of Black people and our allies in the struggle for equality.

Ginsburg was often a key vote in 5-4 decisions that protected civil rights. And as the right-wing took power, she was often a powerful prophetic voice dissenting from abominations like the gutting of the Voting Rights Act in 2013.

As part of a political deal to help him win the White House, Trump turned over selection of judges to a hard-right legal movement that wants to reverse many of the social justice gains of the past century.

Any Trump nominee would have been a threat to the causes for which Ginsburg devoted her life.

Judge Amy Coney Barrett believes Obamacare is unconstitutional-and there's a case coming before the Supreme Court just a week after the election that will give her and other right-wing justices a chance to destroy access to health care and legal protections for people, right in the middle of a pandemic.

In a case that raises alarms about her commitment to racial equity, she voted to deny a hearing to a Black man who worked for a company that assigned staff to different stores based on their race.

If she is confirmed, our ability to count on federal courts to protect our rights will be diminished even further. Yet, this is Republicans' top priority, just a month before Election Day, with many Americans already voting to turn out the president who is trying to create a Supreme Court that will protect his agenda long after he is gone.

Here's what Senate Republicans aren't doing while they confirm every new judge, no matter how extreme or unqualified, President Trump sends their way:

They aren't dealing with the COVID crisis that is killing Black and brown people at a far higher rate than white people-and they aren't providing relief for all the working people driven into economic crisis by the pandemic.

They aren't taking up the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, which would bring back federal protections for voting rights that were once embraced by politicians from both parties.

They aren't acting on the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which would bring greater accountability to law enforcement and protect people of color from racist and discriminatory policing.

The push by Trump and Senate Republicans to pack the Supreme Court while ignoring the urgent needs of our community and our demands for justice is the ultimate evidence of how important this election is to America, especially to Black America.

Do not sit this one out. Get registered. Make a plan to vote. And vote like our lives depend on it.

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What's at Stake with Trump's Supreme Court Nominee: Health Care and Civil Rights - People For the American Way

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Republicans' rush to fill the vacant U.S. Supreme Court seat before the election is a terrible threat to Black people's civil rights and the health of our communities. In her 27 years on the Supreme Court, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a champion of civil rights.

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Not Just Another Conservative Vote: How Amy Coney Barrett Could Influence the Supreme Court

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Amy Coney Barrett's personality and ideology may help her to unite the six justices on the right and shape the language of majority rulings.

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Barrett’s Record: A Conservative Who Would Push the Supreme Court to the Right

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As an appeals court judge, Judge Barrett has issued opinions that have reflected those of her mentor, Justice Antonin Scalia, but with few of his occasional liberal rulings.

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Read CNN's Fast Facts about the life of US Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

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What does Amy Coney Barrett want to do in her position as Supreme Court justice and how will it affect women's reproductive rights nationwide?

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Abortion opponents were among those most excited by the addition of Justice Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court in October. And they had good reason to be.

As a law professor and circuit court judge, Barrett made it clear she is no fan of abortion rights. She is considered likely to vote not only to uphold restrictions on the procedure, but also, possibly, even to overturn the existing national right to abortion under the Supreme Court's landmark rulings in Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey.

Her first opportunity to weigh in could come soon. A Mississippi ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy - a ban that's impermissible under existing court precedents - is awaiting review by the justices, who could decide as early as this week to take up the case.

That's the headline. But many people overlook other things that could flow from new U.S. jurisprudence on abortion - such as erasing the right to birth control that the court recognized in a 1965 case, Griswold v. Connecticut. During her confirmation hearings, Barrett specifically refused to say whether she felt Griswold was correctly decided.

That was a flashing red warning light for Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, a legal advocacy group that argues cases on abortion and contraception. Roe, Northup says, is part of a century of jurisprudence based on the idea that the U.S. Constitution protects the liberty of individuals.

"It began with cases about how one educates one's children," Northup says, and includes same-sex marriage, contraception and abortion. You can't just take Roe out and not unravel the whole fabric."

Yet from what Barrett has said and written about the Constitution, Northup says, "it's clear she doesn't believe it protects the right to personal liberty."

Abortion rights advocates worry that the court could go beyond overturning Roe and Casey. If those precedents are overturned, abortion decisions would return to the states. But the court could go a step further and recognize "fetal personhood" - the idea that a fetus is a person with full constitutional rights from the moment of fertilization. That would create a constitutional bar to abortion, among other things, meaning even the most liberal states could not allow the procedure.

Personhood amendments were on the ballot in several states about a decade ago. They were rejected by voters even in conservative states like Mississippi after opponents argued that recognizing life at fertilization would outlaw not just abortion, without exceptions, but also things like i n vitro fertilization and many forms of contraception, including some birth control pills, "morning after" pills, and intrauterine devices (IUDs) that some think could cause very early abortions by preventing a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus. (More recent scientific evidence suggests nearly all those methods actually prevent ovulation, not implantation, but courts haven't always followed the science on that.)

An abortion law passed in Georgia in 2019 not only includes a ban on abortion at the point a heartbeat can be detected - often before a woman is aware she is pregnant - but also has a fetal personhood provision. Georgia is appealing a federal district court ruling that struck down the law as a violation of Roe.

Proponents of these "personhood" provisions are cautiously optimistic. "It looks like there will be a court more friendly to a challenge to Roe," says Les Riley, interim president of the Personhood Alliance, the group pushing the concept. "But to some extent we've been down this road before."

Previous courts since the early 1990s that were thought poised to overturn Roe did not. And even if the court were to uphold a law like the Mississippi ban it is considering now, Riley says, "all that's saying is they agree that states can regulate or ban abortion at 15 weeks. What we want to do is have the factual reality that life begins at conception recognized in law."

Mary Ziegler, a law professor at Florida State University who has written two books on the abortion battle, says the high court wouldn't have to recognize fetal personhood to threaten many forms of contraception.

States could effectively ban contraception by arguing that some contraceptives act as abortifacients, she says. The court has already opened the door to this argument. In the 2014 Hobby Lobby case, it allowed some companies to decline to offer birth control coverage otherwise required by the Affordable Care Act to their employees. The owners of the companies that brought the suit said they believe some contraceptives are a form of abortion, and the court said the requirement violated their religious freedom. The court used a similar reasoning in a 2020 case exempting the Roman Catholic order Little Sisters of the Poor from even having to sign a paper that would officially exempt them from the ACA contraceptive mandate.

Medical groups and the federal government don't consider any form of contraception approved by the Food and Drug Administration an abortion-equivalent, because the standard medical definition of the start of pregnancy is when a fertilized egg implants in the uterus, not when sperm and egg first unite. Yet the court has not always followed science on the issue.

Still, Ziegler says, "personhood has always been the endgame" for abortion foes, not simply overturning Roe, which would let each state decide whether to outlaw abortion. "Allowing states to leave abortion legal has never been the endgame," she says.

Interestingly, however, Riley, of the Personhood Alliance, says that while he hopes his side will win eventually, he is not necessarily hoping that win will come from the Supreme Court.

"We think the strategy has been misguided for years," he says. "Right now, five justices can overturn anything. That's not the system of government our founders had in mind."

Rather, he says, his organization is working more at the state and local level "to lay the groundwork of people's hearts being changed."
Kaiser Health News is a nonprofit, editorially independent program of the Kaiser Family Foundation. KHN is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

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How An Abortion Fight In Supreme Court Could Threaten Birth Control, Too

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Abortion opponents were among those most excited by the addition of Justice Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court in October. And they had good reason to be. As a law professor and circuit court judge, Barrett made it clear she is no fan of abortion rights.