During his confirmation hearing on Wednesday, Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh praised Justice White’s concurrence in Griswold v. Connecticut and later expressed agreement with Chief Justice Roberts’ and Justice Alito’s prior statements about Griswold and Eisenstadt v. Baird.
Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) asked, “In Griswold and Eisenstadt, the Supreme Court said that states could not prohibit either married or unmarried people from using contraceptives. Do you believe Griswold and Eisenstadt were correctly decided?”
After stating that those two rulings followed previous rulings in Pierce v. Society of Sisters and Meyer v. Nebraska establishing the right to privacy, Kavanaugh said, “Griswold, I think that Justice White’s concurrence is a persuasive application. Because that specifically rooted the Griswold result in the Pierce and Meyer decisions. I thought that was a persuasive opinion. And, no quarrel with that.”
Harris then asked if Griswold was correctly decided, and Kavanaugh re-iterated his praise of Justice White’s concurrence in Griswold.
Harris then asked if Kavanaugh would agree that Griswold and Eisenstadt were correctly decided.
Kavanaugh responded, “Given the precedent of Pierce and Meyer, I agree with chief — Justice Alito and Chief Justice Roberts, what they said.”
Harris followed up, “That it was correctly decided?”
Kavanaugh stated, “That’s what they said.”
Harris then questioned Kavanaugh on whether the right to privacy “protects a woman’s choice to terminate a pregnancy?”
Kavanaugh stated that because that question might come before the court and because it’s improper to give a thumbs up or thumbs down on precedent, he couldn’t answer.
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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