Matt K. Lewis:
She’s the kind of nominee the Democrats went nuclear for.
Cornelia “Nina” Pillard was confirmed by a 51-44 vote in the U.S. Senate in the middle of the night last night, as a judge on the powerful D.C. Circuit court. Prior to the nuclear option, she would have been (justifiably) filibustered and blocked.
Her views on a myriad of subjects are clearly outside the mainstream. Consider, for example, Pillard’s thoughts on abortion. This is from 2007: ”Casting reproductive rights in terms of equality holds promise to recenter the debate…away from the deceptive images of fetus-as-autonomous-being that the anti-choice movement has popularized…” (Bold mine.) (page 990)
This suggests a sort of anti-science view that is especially worrisome when found in someone who is supposed to put facts (and the law) ahead of political ideology. It’s a position that’s meant to serve her political theory, but flies in the face of science. Sonograms, of course, have changed the game. People put these pictures on their Facebook wall precisely because it’s very obviously their child. Nothing else quite captures her doctrinaire rigidity better than this statement.)
She went on to argue that limiting abortion “reinforces broader patterns of discrimination against women as a class of presumptive breeders…” (p.975) and that abortion rights “play a central role in freeing women from historically routine conscription into maternity.” (p. 945)
Perhaps the most alarming thing I’ve read of Pillard’s was called “The Human Right of Sex Equality at the Work-Family Fault Line.” It’s an academic paper, so many of the opinions are couched in jargon and footnotes. But in reading it, it’s very clear that Pillard believes progressives should strategically cast all of their agenda wishes in terms of “rights,” rather than needs.
Here’s an excerpt from page 359:
In a footnote on that same page, she notes that “Alex Aleinikoff asserts that ‘for progressives… the rights tradition of the U.S. Constitution has just about run out’ but he sees promise in international human rights as a potential source of social rights in the United States.” (This quote is obviously not attributable to Pillard, but she is using it to buttress her case.)
On the issue of religious freedom, Pillard is predictably terrible — having argued churches don’t have the right to determine for themselves what qualifies as a minister — something judges have recognized as an inherent right under the First Amendment since our founding.
