Amy Coney Barrett

Amy Coney Barrett is a justice to the United States Supreme Court. Nominated by President Donald Trump in 2020, she is known for her conservative voting record on cases touching abortion, LGBTQ rights, gun rights and immigration. Forty-eight years old at the time of her lifetime appointment, she will help move the Court firmly to the right for decades to come.

Conservative Supreme Court to Rule on Right to Be Trans, Medical Care, Parents’ Rights, Constitutional Sex Discrimination—and the Right to Be Different

“I’m here to stand up for my kid,” Brian Williams told me outside the Supreme Court on Dec. 4. Williams and his wife Samantha have been fighting for their daughter—known as L.W. in the legal papers the ACLU filed to challenge Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming medical care for minors—for years.

Though difficult to sit through, the two-plus hours of argument in United States v. Skrmetti—a challenge by trans youth, their families, the ACLU, Lambda Legal and the Biden administration to Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors—was a nearly perfect distillation of this moment in our gender politics.

Abortion Funds in Pennsylvania, N.Y. and N.J. Are ‘Moving Millions of Dollars to Get People Basic Healthcare’

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This piece, based on three funds in the Northeast, is the fourth in a series of articles spotlighting interviews with fund representatives across the U.S.

We interviewed representatives from the New York Abortion Access Fund (NYAAF), New Jersey Abortion Access Fund (NJAAF) and Abortion Liberation Fund of Pennsylvania (ALF-PA). Activists at each of these funds noted the delicate balance between supporting abortion seekers from their home states and helping the influx of folks traveling to “blue states” for abortion care.

Reforming the Supreme Court Should Be Commonplace

The Biden-Harris administration’s proposed Supreme Court reforms are an opportunity to move forward discussions on how to check the third branch of government.

The courts had long served as a pillar of our democracy until conservative forces waged a decades-long campaign to twist the judiciary to its antidemocratic liking. The need for reform is clear—and something that voters across the political spectrum want.

Dropping the ‘Respectfully’ in Dissent: What ‘Trump v. U.S.’ Means for the Country’s Future

The Supreme Court majority’s extreme belief in Trump v. U.S. that our president is above the law is anathema to the history of our nation.

In almost every case, the dissenting justices write, “I respectfully dissent,” but both Sotomayor and Jackson omit the “respectfully” in their dissents in Trump v. U.S. There is little to cling to in this decision. It is as un-American as can be.

EMTALA Dissents: Jackson Warns of ‘Storm Clouds’ for Pregnant Women, While Conservatives Long for Fetal Personhood

The Supreme Court’s dismissal of the EMTALA case drew the fierce ire of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. Warning of the “storm clouds [that] loom ahead,” Jackson condemned the Court’s failure to resolve the case on the merits, in accordance with the long-settled principle that “state laws that conflict with federal laws, are ‘without effect.’”

In an alternate dissent, the Court’s hardcore conservative justices—Alito, Thomas and Gorsuch—paid homage to the unborn child.

SCOTUS Rejects Biden’s Bid for Emergency Abortion Care, Risking Lives of Women in Texas and Other Abortion Ban States

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The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected a request from the Biden administration to send a dispute over emergency abortions in Texas back to the lower courts. The Court dealt with a set of similar cases out of Idaho in June without reaching a conclusive decision on the federal law in question, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA).

“Recently, the world has heard the story of Amber Thurman, a young woman who died because of Georgia’s extreme abortion ban,” said Noreen Farrell, executive director of Equal Rights Advocates. “Today’s punt by the Supreme Court will lead to more cases like Amber’s. … The Court is telling women in states with bans that need abortion care to save their life: ‘We don’t care.'”

In U.S. v. Rahimi, Domestic Violence Victims Live to Die Another Day

Friday morning, the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that a law restricting firearms access for a narrow class of individuals subject to a specific kind of domestic violence restraining order does not violate the Second Amendment. The ruling is a “win” in much the same way the Court’s ruling in the mifepristone case FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine earlier this month is a win: The Court did the “bare minimum” necessary to cling to the last vestiges of its legitimacy.

The threat posed by violent abusers like Zackey Rahimi might be temporarily disarmed today, but the threat posed by the Supreme Court’s patriarchal agenda remains a loaded weapon.

Meet the Anti-Feminist Women’s Group Leveraging Their ‘Independence’ to Convince Americans to Vote Republican

The anti-feminist Independent Women’s Voice/Forum (IWF/V), backed by billionaires and anti-abortion zealots, is poised to use its leaders’ identities as women to convince voters that the GOP will protect Americans’ rights and freedoms, like access to birth control and the ability to choose if and when to have children. IWF/V’s past positions, the known agendas of their funders and their membership to Project 2025 belie their true intentions. 

‘Tragedy Upon Tragedy’: What the Justices’ Questions on EMTALA Revealed

The narrowing of options for physicians in Idaho leaves them in a bind: Do you perform an abortion that could save a woman’s life or her organs, as dictated by EMTALA, or will you face penalties under Idaho law? 

Oral arguments can sometimes reveal how the justices of the Supreme Court are approaching the issue at hand. The questions asked by the justices suggest three things: a lack of clarity under Idaho law; abortion as the standard of care; and acknowledgement of fetal personhood.