Brett Kavanaugh defends position on migrant teen who sought an abortion

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Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh said that a disagreement he had about allowing a teen under government custody to have an abortion was based on former rulings allowing the government to regulate abortion.

The case, Garza v. Hargan, was filed against the Trump administration after officials prevented the girl from getting an abortion, delaying its eventual occurrence, and instead took her to visit a Christian crisis pregnancy center. The D.C. Circuit sided with the teen, who was in the U.S. illegally, and Kavanaugh dissented.

He wrote in his opinion that the majority’s position was “based on a constitutional principle as novel as it is wrong: a new right for unlawful immigrant minors in U.S. government detention to obtain immediate abortion on demand.”

But Kavanaugh argued during his confirmation hearing that his position was based on precedent that said that states are allowed to have some regulation on abortion, citing examples such as waiting periods and parental consent laws for minors.

“I also made clear that the government could not make the immigration sponsor as a ruse to try to delay her abortion past the time when it was safe,” Kavanaugh said, arguing that he did not state in his dissent that the girl did not have a right to obtain an abortion.

Kavanaugh declined to address whether he would vote to overturn Roe several times throughout the hearing on Wednesday, citing judicial independence and stressing that Roe had been upheld by the Supreme Court several times. He noted Casey had not only affirmed Roe but also allowed regulation of abortion, and used that to explain his reasoning in Garza.

“I was trying to follow precedent from the Supreme Court which allows some delays in the abortion procedure to parental consent requirements,” he said.

A judge had granted the girl, who was 17, a waiver that allowed her to bypass parental consent. Several other immigrant minors who are in the U.S. illegally, and in government custody, have waged similar suits.

Kavanaugh was questioned sharply about the case, and the “abortion on demand” wording, by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who accused him of using it as a way to signal to the Trump administration that he would be a strong pick to fill the Supreme Court. President Trump had promised he would be “putting pro-life justices on the court” during his presidential campaign and issued a list of the judges he was considering.

The Garza decision occurred after Trump took office, and when the administration issued an updated list in November, Kavanaugh’s name was included.

“You were telling the Trump administration that if they wanted someone who would overturn Roe v. Wade, you would make the list,” Blumenthal said. “These were your bumper stickers in that campaign.”

Kavanaugh pushed back on the assertion, saying that colleagues had long recommended him for the high court because of his record.

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