Planned Parenthood Action Fund is joining several other left-wing groups in a six-figure ad buy that seeks to block the confirmation of President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh.
The campaign, dubbed #DearSenators, focuses on the 1973 Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade that created a right to abortion, though none ever existed in the Constitution.
In Detroit, some two thousand young female Planned Parenthood organizers and volunteers met to plan what the Guardian terms “nothing short of political trench warfare.”
“Are women going to be equal members of this society or not?” asked Deirdre Schifeling, the executive director of Planned Parenthood Action Fund. “Are they going to have equal rights or not? That is what is on the line.”
Addressing the gathering was former Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards and Michigan U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, a Democrat veteran seeking re-election against Trump-endorsed newcomer John James.
The strategy is to pressure Democrat senators in red states like Joe Manchin of West Virginia and pro-choice Republican senators such as Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska to vote against Kavanaugh’s confirmation. With the GOP’s slim majority in the Senate, a successful plan could block the nominee’s approval.
“We know from the fight over the Affordable Care Act that hearing from thousands of Alaskans across the state really impacted her decision,” Jessica Cler, a Planned Parenthood organizer in Anchorage, said of Murkowski, according to the Guardian. “We know it will be the same with Scotus, so folks are doing anything and everything they can to make sure that she’s hearing from us.”
The ads, however, will be running across the country, observes the Hill.
Planned Parenthood will be joined in the campaign by Stand Up America, Advocates for Youth, Center for American Progress, and National Women’s Law Center. The ad campaign claims Kavanaugh is “unfit to serve a lifetime on our highest court.”
The campaign continues:
His record says it all: If given the chance, he’d gut Roe v. Wade. He would take away our access to abortion, birth control, and health care, and he’d threaten our ability to live free of discrimination. Our senators shouldn’t vote on Kavanaugh’s confirmation without hearing from us first.
However, Leonard Leo, an outside adviser to Trump on Supreme Court nominations, has said the fate of Roe v. Wade remains uncertain and that the left is fear-mongering that Trump’s nominee will overturn the controversial decision.
“We’ve been talking about this for 36 years, going all the way back to the nomination of Sandra O’Connor,” Leo said in July, according to ABC’s This Week. “And after that 36-year period, we only have a single individual on the court who has expressly said he would overturn Roe. So I think it’s a bit of a scare tactic and ranks speculation more than anything else.”
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