Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Perspectives: Kavanaugh, Conservative Supreme Court Would Put Women's Reproductive Rights At Severe Risk
Portland Press Herald: Sen. Collins’ Legacy Faces Key Test With Kavanaugh
She has long prided herself on never missing a vote in the U.S. Senate. But of all the thousands she’s cast in her 21 years on Capitol Hill, this is the one on which Sen. Susan Collins’ legacy will hinge. She can vote later this month to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court and hope – no, make that pray – that he stands by his assurance to her that Roe. v. Wade is “settled law.” (Whatever that means.) Or she can open her eyes to what many others already see – that Kavanaugh represents the tipping point in the never-ending battle over a woman’s right to choose an abortion – and vote to keep him off the highest court in the land. (Bill Nemitz, 9/10)
The Boston Globe: Senator Collins: Oppose Brett Kavanaugh’s Nomination
(Brett) Kavanaugh’s obvious hostility to abortion rights is alarming, but it’s what President Trump promised and what Americans voted for in 2016. Yet that doesn’t mean senators should rubber-stamp iffy nominees for lifetime appointments. Start with Kavanaugh’s dissembling answer about abortion. It’s become standard for nominees to avoid commenting on their views on Roe v. Wade. It is not standard to mislead senators, but that’s just what Kavanaugh did. (9/10)
The Detroit Free Press: Brett Kavanaugh And The Future Of Reproductive Rights
The first appointments were at 8 a.m., which had me on the road to my old, east-side neighborhood no later than 6:45. The clinic was on Eight Mile, closer to Kelly than Gratiot. You could easily miss the plain brick building with its windows tucked near the roofline. I sometimes did. Every Saturday, eight to 10 of us gathered to escort unsuspecting women past the posters, prayers and pamphlets of anti-abortion activists. (Annmarie Erickson, 9/10)
The New York Times: The Handmaid’s Court
It’s fitting that last week’s Kavanaugh confirmation hearings were regularly interrupted by the sound of women screaming. Again and again, protesters, most of them female, cried out for the preservation of their rights, and were arrested. Republican men were contemptuous. “What’s the hysteria coming from?” asked Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska. Let me answer. It is true, as Sasse said, that protesters have claimed for many years that if Roe v. Wade is overturned, women will die. It’s a fair prediction; women died before Roe, and where abortion is illegal, unsafe abortion leads to maternal death. In the past, however, Roe has been saved. Should Kavanaugh be confirmed, it will either fall or be eviscerated. (Michelle Goldberg, 9/10)
