President Donald Trump’s nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court publicly supported an extremist group that calls for the prosecution of physicians who provide abortions.
Amy Coney Barrett was among hundreds of people who signed a full-page newspaper advertisement in 2006 sponsored by St. Joseph County Right to Life in the South Bend Tribune, reported The Guardian.
“We, the following citizens of Michiana, oppose abortion on demand and defend the right to life from fertilization to natural death,” the letter stated, referring to the region in southwestern Michigan and northeastern Indiana. “Please continue to pray to end abortion.”
The statement signed by Barrett and her husband, Jesse, does not appear to have been disclosed in her questionnaire submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee, according to Brian Fallon, executive director of the left-leaning Demand Justice advocacy group.
Jackie Appleman, the executive director of St. Joseph County Right to Life, told The Guardian that her group believed that life begins at fertilization and that discarding unused or frozen embryos created in the in vitro fertilization (IVF) process should be criminalized.
“Whether embryos are implanted in the woman and then selectively reduced or it’s done in a petri dish and then discarded, you’re still ending a new human life at that point and we do oppose that,”
She also said the group believes doctors should be prosecuted for performing abortions, although she stopped short of calling for criminal charges against women who terminate their pregnancy.
“We support the criminalization of the doctors who perform abortions,” Appleman said. “At this point we are not supportive of criminalizing the women. We would be supportive of criminalizing the discarding of frozen embryos or selective reduction through the IVF process.”