Fr. Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life, told Breitbart News that President Biden’s Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson “cannot even see that partial birth abortion is wrong” and asserted the Democrat party has become an “arm of the abortion industry,” despite the fact most Americans oppose such extremism.
“We said prior to the decision that because of the position of the Democrat party, the extremism, especially on abortion, any of these choices we would have opposed,” Pavone told Breitbart News during an exclusive interview at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Orlando, Florida.
“Here we now have a nominee who cannot even see that partial birth abortion is wrong, where the birth process itself is used as a mechanism for killing the baby,” Pavone said.
“This is a judge who has taken a position against the freedom of pro-lifers to go up to abortion facilities and counsel the mothers going in. We would have had a problem with any of Biden’s nominees because unfortunately, the Democrat party has become an arm of the abortion industry,” he said, noting that Priests for Life has recommended Americans communicate with their senators and urge them to oppose this nominee.
Indeed, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson once filed a brief on behalf of very pro-abortion organizations “in a buffer zone case in which she repeatedly disparaged the peaceful and often prayerful clinic protesters as engaging in ‘in-your-face’ and ‘chaotic’ activity that somehow fell short of ‘pure speech,'” as Fox News detailed. Students for Life Action also noted that she worked to defend partial birth abortion, working “in support of infanticide when she clerked for Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer as he struck down a Nebraska law banning horrifying partial birth abortions in a case known as Stenberg v. Carhart.”
However, Pavone does not expect the upcoming Supreme Court nomination to be as big of a battle as those in the past, as it will not alter the ideological balance of the high court.
“But nevertheless, anytime a Supreme Court Justice is nominated and the confirmation process begins, it’s a moment to remind the American people of the role of the courts and the role of the judges. It is not to invent rights that are not in the Constitution,” he said. “It is not to bring their own ideological viewpoint into the process.”
“They are supposed to be a neutral branch of government, applying and interpreting the Constitution. We don’t have that anymore in a lot of these judges, including this current Biden nomination. So let’s use this moment to help the American people think through the proper role of the court and let’s use it as a time to reject again judicial activism,” he added, telling Breitbart News that Priests for Life remain confident that Roe v. Wade could be dismantled in the near future. He also said the American people will not go along with far-left attempts to make unlimited abortions a matter of federal law.
Additionally, Pavone said most people do not embrace the extremist position of the left, noting that when one asks people under what circumstances they believe abortion should be allowed, most do not believe it should be allowed after the first trimester, and most do not think a woman should be able to murder a baby after viability.
Most pro-choice individuals, he added, do not want to see late-term abortion, so pro-abortion activists are essentially “latching on to slogans and not actually examining people’s actual positions” on these matters.