Supreme court justice says overturning Roe v Wade respected voters’ will, though polls show majority back abortion rights
Amy Coney Barrett, the conservative supreme court justice whose controversial fast-track confirmation at the end of Donald Trump’s first presidency led directly to the panel’s vote to strike down abortion rights nationally, has expressed in a new memoir her belief that the ruling “respected the choice” of the American people.
Barrett was paid a $2m advance for her book Listening to the Law, according to CNN, which obtained a copy and published brief extracts on Tuesday, a week before its 9 September publication.
Her comments about the June 2022 decision that reversed the court’s 1973 Roe v Wade ruling guaranteeing the constitutional right to an abortion are certain to draw scrutiny – and criticism.
“[T]he court’s role is to respect the choices that the people have agreed upon, not to tell them what they should agree to,” Barrett writes, according to CNN. The outlet framed Barrett’s comment as reflecting her belief that her predecessors’ 7-2 vote in Roe v Wade had “usurped the will of the American people”.
