Potential For Judicial Appointments By Next President Puts Women's Rights At 'Crossroads,' Opinion Piece Says

Main Category: Fertility
Also Included In: Women's Health / Gynecology
Article Date: 22 Oct 2008 - 6:00 PDT

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The power of the next president to make appointments to federal courts places women "at a crossroads in our struggle for legal equality as a means to social equality," including on policies related to reproductive health, Catharine MacKinnon, a professor of law at the University of Michigan, writes in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece. MacKinnon notes that the next president likely will appoint "scores" of lower court federal judges who will have the chance to make final decisions in cases important to women. These judges' decisions could promote "equality in employment, education, reproductive rights and in ending violence against women -- or not," MacKinnon writes. In addition, under the next president, "[o]ne, perhaps three, justices may be named to a Supreme Court that in recent years has decided many cases of importance to women by just one vote," MacKinnon writes. She adds that if South Dakota voters approve a proposed abortion ban on the state's November ballot, "its challenge in court would place the federal decriminalization of abortion in jeopardy."

MacKinnon continues, "Positions on women's rights do not divide equally along conventional political lines, nor is abortion their sole template," but the judges chosen by the next president could "make or break women's equality in law, hence in life, for generations." MacKinnon says that if Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) is elected, his appointments could restore the "balance in fairness that ideological appointments by past administrations have upset" and Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) has "committed to continue." She concludes by saying, "At stake is nothing less than whether women will be, finally, equal" (MacKinnon, Wall Street Journal, 10/21).

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