Pro-Life Advocates Outraged As Pro-Abortion Lawyer Inches Closer To Lifetime Judgeship

The cloture vote was 53-45, with pro-abortion Republican Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska joining Democrats to end the debate and preclude the possibility of a filibuster. Republican Senators Tim Scott of South Carolina and Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee did not vote. The Senate is expected to proceed to a roll-call vote on Rikelman's confirmation on June 20, with Democrats having the 60 votes required, especially with Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and John Fetterman (D-Pa.) likely to be physically present.

Conservatives, such as Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), have recently expressed concerns that Rikelman's nomination by President Joe Biden is part of a broader effort to "fundamentally change our judiciary." Cruz told Rikelman in September 2022, one month after her nomination, that her career embodies "precisely this pattern," having spent most of her professional life as "an extreme zealot advocating for abortion."

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Rikelman, who served for nearly a decade as senior litigation director for the Center for Reproductive Rights, a pro-abortion advocacy organization, regards abortion as a right. In a December 2021 Salon interview, she suggested that academic, financial, and professional gains enjoyed by women were made possible by abortion, indicating that one of her biggest goals was "to make sure that the voices of women were heard at the court and were present in the courtroom ... to make sure that the impact of taking this right away, something the court hast [sic] never done ... would be felt." Before the Supreme Court's 2022 ruling, the 51-year-old Ukrainian native recommended "expanding access to abortion," stating that the "status quo is not good enough" and that she was committed to the "battle against outright bans on abortion."

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Rikelman has lashed out against the pro-life movement, calling pregnancy resource centers "faux clinics." Tony Perkins, President of the Family Research Council, noted Tuesday that "Rikelman's career of representing abortionists in court and leading a U.S. litigation team for a pro-abortion organization makes her incapable of acting as an impartial jurist and therefore, unfit for a seat on the federal bench." Marjorie Dannenfelser, President of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, wrote in February, "Pro-abortion litigation makes up the singular focus of her legal experience over the last decade and renders her unfit to serve as an impartial judge on the First Circuit. Rikelman's career has been strictly centered around the radical, pro-abortion agenda for over two decades."

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June 16, 2023

While Rikelman has suggested she would keep her pro-abortion advocacy and her prospective role as judge separate, leftist outfits may be under a different impression. The following are some of the radical groups that have expressed their "enthusiastic support" for her nomination: Gender Justice; NARAL Pro-Choice America; National Abortion Federation; Planned Parenthood Federation of America; Physicians for Reproductive Health; Pro-Choice North Carolina; Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice; Reproduction; Reproductive Equity Now; and another radical pro-abortion group that seeks to undermine parental rights, Unite for Reproductive and Gender Equity.

If the Senate confirms the nomination, Rikelman will serve as a federal judge for life.