Missouri GOP Sen. Josh Hawley says that Roe v. Wade is the greatest injustice of our lifetime and that the U.S. Supreme Court has an opportunity to correct it.
During an interview on Fox News, Hawley was asked about the Supreme Court reportedly voting in favor of striking down the controversial Roe v. Wade decision.
A draft majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito was leaked to Politico on Monday night and it set off a firestorm on social media.
Hawley said the nation’s highest court has a historic opportunity to “do the right thing.”
Below is a transcript of the exchange:
Carlson: “Senator Josh Hawley understands exactly what’s going on here. He clerked on the Supreme Court for John Roberts and we’re happy to have him join us. Senator, thanks so much for coming on. So you have a sitting member of Congress threatening court justices with a mob if they don’t do what she wants. That seems very dangerous to me.”
Hawley: “You know, what it is, Tucker, is abortion is religion for the far left. They’re willing to do anything to defend that religion and to force it on everybody else. That’s why they’re willing to burn down the court as an institution. You know, they’re only for the institution if it does exactly what they say it should do. And let’s be clear about what Roe really says. What Roe really says is that the people are too stupid to make these decisions for themselves. The people can’t be trusted to actually vote and deliberate and make tough moral choices. It says, ‘Oh, no, no, nine justices wearing robes, they should be the ones making all the decisions.’ That’s not what the constitution says though, Tucker, and that’s why we need to get back to trusting the people and actually enforcing the Constitution.”
Carlson: “Well, exactly. I mean, I have really strong feelings about this. I would be absolutely happy —in fact, I hope that we can put this up for a vote in the United States Congress, in the House, and the Senate, and we can determine what the people want to do about abortion. Why is that a scary option?”
Hawley: “You know, it’s not scary. It’s democracy. And this is about whether or not democracy is going to have its day. You know, supposedly Joe Biden believes in democracy, and yet today you heard him. He was saying that this is too important to be trusted to the whims of the people. Oh, you mean actually the voters, you mean the people who elected you, the sovereigns of this nation? That’s what we’re talking about here. So what the court should do, and what this opinion does do, is that it puts democracy back in the driver’s seat. And I hope the court will stick with it. They can’t turn back now, Tucker, in the face of this pressure.”
Earlier this year, Hawley predicted that Justice Amy Coney Barrett — who was nominated by President Donald Trump — may cast the tie-breaking vote to overturn Roe v Wade.
Hawley explained, “It would mean the reaching of a landmark goal that I mean, frankly, I have to say just personally, that Roe is one of the reasons that the major reason that I went into politics, and I think that’s true for many, many other people. That’s one of the major reasons I was interested in the law. And this is the greatest injustice of our lifetimes.”
Hawley said, “I just have to say that someone who believes that that row is one of the worst decisions ever handed down by the Supreme Court, I think it would be a monumental moral landmark and reverse a great injustice.”
Soon after Alito’s draft majority opinion leaked, it’s assumed there were at least 5 votes in favor of overturning Roe v Wade, leaving state legislators to weigh their own abortion policies.
More bluntly, if the Supreme Court does announce that Roe v Wade is overturned, each state will have to pass abortion laws and it’s likely many will enact very strict measures against the practice.
“The draft opinion is a full-throated, unflinching repudiation of the 1973 decision which guaranteed federal constitutional protections of abortion rights and a subsequent 1992 decision – Planned Parenthood v. Casey – that largely maintained the right,” Politico reported.
“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Alito writes.
“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” he writes in the document, labeled as the “Opinion of the Court.”
Alito adds: “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”
“We, therefore, hold the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion. Roe and Casey must be overruled, and the authority to regulate abortion must be returned to the people and their elected representatives,” Alito writes in the document, labeled the ‘Opinion of the Court.’
Reporting from The Conservative Brief.
