Democratic Rep. Lois Frankel held up a wire coat hanger and banged it on the table at a briefing with reporters on Capitol Hill Wednesday when discussing President Trump’s Supreme Court pick, Brett Kavanaugh.
Frankel, D-Fla., expressed anger and fear over the possibility that Roe v. Wade could be overturned if Kavanaugh, a D.C. Circuit judge, is confirmed to the Supreme Court.
“When I was 15, I found a friend near death, bleeding to death from a back alley abortion,” Frankel said, holding up the hanger and tapping it on the table. “And when I was in college I can tell you that I encountered many many many young women who were desperate to find abortions – this was before Roe v Wade.”
Frankel said she’s “alarmed” that if Kavanaugh is confirmed the five men on the Supreme Court would take America back to “the days of coat hanger medicine.”
During Kavanaugh’s 2006 confirmation hearing to the circuit court, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., asked Kavanaugh if he thought Roe v. Wade was “an abomination.” Kavanaugh didn’t answer the question directly, instead saying he’d “follow Roe v. Wade faithfully and fully,” calling it “binding precedent.”
[WATCH: Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh answers Chuck Schumer on Roe v. Wade at his 2006 confirmation hearing]
But Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., said voters need to realize that the right to legal abortion could go away. Nadler’s “afraid” that rather than outright overruling the law, Kavanaugh would contribute to “hallowing” it out so “it’s technically still on the books but it doesn’t mean anything anymore.”
“We’ve had the right of choice now since 1973; women and men now are complacent,” said Nadler, ranking member on House Judiciary Committee.
Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-Calif., said Democrats need to explain to voters that it matters who controls Congress even if Kavanaugh is ultimately confirmed.
Democrats will communicate to voters that flipping the House “would give Democrats the opportunity to fix overreaches by the Supreme Court — some — if it went too far to the right.”
“For me, stopping any anti-abortion member of the Supreme Court,” Frankel said, “is way above politics of whole thing.”
