National and state-based pro-life organizations and other conservatives are mobilizing a grassroots campaign that intends to urge the GOP-led Senate to hold firm to its assurance it will not consider President Barack Obama’s nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The coalition – which is expected to expand to include a rapid response team as well as nationwide and state-based webcasts – is mobilizing at www.ProtectTheCourt.com, where activists can send immediate messages to their U.S. Senators.
Concerned Women for America, Iowa Right to Life, March for Life, Priests for Life, Students for Life of America, and Susan B. Anthony List are included in the coalition that will rally around pro-life senators who assert the American people should choose the next justice of the high court, who will take the seat of recently deceased Justice Antonin Scalia.
A joint statement from the coalition states:
President Obama has nominated Merrick Garland to the U.S. Supreme Court. A Justice Garland replacing Justice Scalia would move the Court dramatically to the pro-abortion position. How do we know? Because President Obama and the abortion lobby wouldn’t have it any other way. Anyone he nominates will join the voting bloc on the Court that consistently upholds abortion on-demand. Even TheNew York Times reported that “A Supreme Court with Merrick Garland Would Be the Most Liberal in Decades,” and America’s largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood, has signaled their support for him.
President Obama should NOT be permitted one last opportunity to stack the Court with pro-abortion Justices. Instead, the people should have a say this November, and the next President should fill this important vacancy.
Ashley McGuire, senior fellow with The Catholic Association, said in a statement sent to Breitbart News, “An initial review of President Obama’s selection of Merrick Garland [of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals] to replace Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court raises grave concerns at a time when religious liberty is under assault and when the stakes in the fight for the unborn have never been higher.”
McGuire observes how Catholic organizations have especially been affected by Obamacare’s HHS mandate that requires them to provide free contraception and abortion-inducing drugs to their employees through health insurance plans.
She continues:
Catholics have special cause for concern at his vote to deny a rehearing to the Priests for Life in their lawsuit against the HHS mandate. Despite opposition from Garland, that case moved forward and now sits alongside the case brought by the Little Sisters of the Poor before the Supreme Court. Furthermore, the high praise from the CEO of Planned Parenthood raises major red flags, but is unsurprising given the president’s extreme position on the issue of abortion and given that Garland himself called the author of Roe v. Wade “a great gift to the country.”
As the New York Times observes, Garland praised the work of Justice Harry Blackmun – the author of the decision that legalized abortion in the United States:
For example, while Judge Garland has not often dealt with social issues, at a 2005 book event, he reportedly described the release of the papers of the late Justice Harry Blackmun — the author of the 1973 Roe v. Wade abortion rights decision — as a “great gift to the country.”
Phillip Jauregui, the president of the conservative Judicial Action Group, said that remark sent an alarming signal to social conservatives. “The fact that he would use those words to describe Harry Blackmun’s papers is cause for concern,” he said.
A letter by the Conservative Action Project also represents more than 160 conservative leaders who are urging Republican senators to maintain their stance against considering Obama’s nominee.
The letter states:
Last month our country lost a great American and a great jurist, Justice Antonin Scalia.
The country barely had time to absorb that loss when we were forced to confront the prospect of President Obama filling that Supreme Court vacancy and creating a liberal majority on the Court.
This would be an unprecedented shift in the direction of the Court undertaken at a time when the entire country is embroiled in the most contentious presidential campaign in modern history. Government in Washington is divided and dysfunctional. The American people are going to the polls in November to select a new president and a new Congress. They should also have a say in the direction of the Court.
Senate Republicans have announced that they will exercise their constitutional advice and consent authority and refuse to consent to any Obama nominee. The American people deserve to have their voice heard in the process. We applaud Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles Grassley (R-IA) for promising not to hold a hearing on any nominee.
President Obama wants to deny the American people that choice. And no wonder. He has already made two extreme liberal appointments to the Court and if given a third he will have succeeded in decisively changing the current balance of the Court. A liberal majority will rule for decades.
Let there be no mistake about it: President Obama will nominate a liberal to this vacancy. Press leaks about potential “moderate” candidates should be interpreted simply as misdirection from the White House.
The president and his liberal allies know what is at stake and so do we. It is nothing short of their intent to eradicate precious constitutional rights. These leftists have made clear their first target is our 1st Amendment right to political speech and the silencing of conservative voices. They mock the 2nd Amendment right of the people to protect themselves and their families and are determined to take away our constitutional right to bear arms. They welcome the prospect of unleashing unaccountable federal agencies like the IRS and EPA to impose a liberal policy agenda that will harm Americans and punish any who dare to disagree with their worldview. And not least of all, they vow to use the Court’s power to impose an “unconditional surrender” in their cultural war against our fundamental institutions of faith, family, marriage, home, and school — and will wipe out any pro-life protections, instead imposing abortion on-demand, up to the moment of birth, paid for by the taxpayers.
We are facing a national constitutional crisis. Senate Republicans have recognized the stakes and have acted accordingly. As conservatives, we strongly support them and their principled stand in favor of the Constitution. And we are all too aware of the negative assault that is coming against the Republican Senators as the national media throws its collective liberal weight against the GOP efforts to allow the American people to play their rightful role in the nomination of the next Supreme Court justice.
We are committed to acting with the same unity the GOP Senate has demonstrated to date in order to bring these issues to the forefront, to make clear to the American people what is at stake and to rally our fellow citizens to the cause of saving the Constitution.
Among the letter’s signers are former U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese III; Becky Norton Dunlop, former adviser to President Ronald Reagan and chairman of the Conservative Action Project; Diana Banister, president of Shirley & Banister Public Affairs; David Bossie, president of Citizens United; L. Brent Bozell III, president of Media Research Center; former GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain; and Sherri Few, president of United States Parents Involved in Education.
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