Female Supreme Court Nominee Can’t Define Woman
Last week Supreme Court Nominee, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, sat before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee for her confirmation hearing. The intent and purpose of the confirmation hearing was to ascertain whether this nominee is fully qualified to sit on the highest court in the nation – the United States Supreme Court. Decisions made by the justices will have a lasting impact on people’s everyday lives for centuries. Such a person must be thoroughly vetted and incredibly qualified.
However, instead of inquiring whether Jackson was qualified, nearly every Democrat used their 30 minutes of questioning to attempt to defend her from the Republicans' line of questioning (as though she couldn’t herself), or simply to gush over her like Sen. Booker (D-NJ), who actually became very emotional. Thankfully, some legitimate questioning came from some like Senator Hawley (R-MO) who questioned her about her judicial record. Specifically, he zeroed in on her troubling sentencing record for convicted child pornographers, in which 100% of the time she gave child porn offenders the minimum sentence allowed, or well below the federal recommendation. The most troubling example of this was the 3 months Judge Jackson sentenced a convicted felon instead of the 2 years the defendant requested or the 8 years recommended by federal law! But when Senator Hawley pressed in on this, she refuse to answer, claiming she’d already answered the question, and almost appeared visibly annoyed.
Another critical moment during the hearings was her inability to state when she thinks life begins or whether a child feels pain at 20 weeks gestation. When Senator Kennedy (R-LA) asked when life began, she replied, “Senator um…I don’t know.” Of course maybe the biggest moment came when Judge Jackson would not provide a simple definition of woman. When pressed to define “woman” by Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), she said, and I quote, “I don’t know. I’m not a biologist.” This being incredibly ironic given that President Biden made it a point to nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court. However, we can take heart that she at least admitted biology determines gender!
Judge Jackson’s “I don’t knows” to basic questions are problematic for a number of reasons, if not simply because she is considered to be a respected legal scholar. And yet she can’t or refuses to define her own sex, or say when life begins. It is not that we should believe she truly doesn’t know (that would be concerning), but that she refuses to answer. Should she answer, she would either have to affirm her leftist ideology publicly or speak the truth which she does not herself believe.
Recall Justice Sotomayor who had no issue declaring from her seat on the bench that she didn’t believe an unborn child could feel pain but rather the jerking movements of a child being aborted was like “the reflexes of a brain dead person”. The Court had no issue addressing the definition of a woman when they redefined sex in the Bostock decision by essentially tossing the true meaning of woman out the window, allowing sex to become a subjective, science-defying term. Judge Jackson’s “I don’t knows” should be seen not as ignorance, but an unwillingness to tell us where her views truly lie and, ultimately, what her decisions will be as Justice Jackson.
Again, the Senate Confirmation hearings are for the purpose of evaluating the nominee’s record, qualifications, and judicial temperament, and any questions that speak to that were quickly repudiated by the left. In contrast, the left didn’t get overly outraged by Senator Cruz’s (R-TX) inquiry into her promotion of Critical Race Theory, or rejected arguments about their unequal treatment of nominees, citing the assault on Justice Kavanaugh’s character and Justice Barrett’s faith. Instead, the left nearly lost their minds when conservatives actually dared to question Judge Jackson on some of the troubling quotes she’s offered and sentencing practices as judge, or closely examined many of her rulings and opinions she’s issued as a judge, all in order to do what’s required of them – to ascertain a better understanding of her judicial philosophy. But according to Chairman Dick Durbin (D-IL), all of that was “unfair”.
While Judge Jackson’s response to some really important questions were “I don’t know,” her judicial philosophy as evidenced by her record and public statements alone should cause Senators and the general public to question her qualifications for the highest court in the land. To learn more about Judge Jackson’s confirmation hearing check out these articles from Heritage Foundation and The Federalist.
