Yahoo Autos Amy Coney Barrett took speaking fees from a group that pushed Mississippi's abortion ban. A constitutional law expert says that won't stop her ruling on the case.
The Supreme Court will hear a case on Mississippi's abortion ban that may challenge Roe v. Wade.
Amy Coney Barrett has been criticized for paid speaking gigs to a group that took credit for the law.
A constitutional law expert says the justice almost certainly won't recuse herself from the case.
When the Supreme Court agreed Monday to hear a challenge to a Mississippi law banning most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, the news prompted renewed speculation about whether the court's conservative majority will overturn the precedent set by Roe v. Wade.
That speculation in part stems from the newest justice to join the bench, Amy Coney Barrett, having won near-universal praise from anti-abortion groups, including one that has claimed credit for the Mississippi law.
Judd Legum's Popular Information newsletter on Tuesday resurfaced Barrett's "ties to the group that wrote Mississippi's abortion ban," the Alliance Defending Freedom. The Christian legal advocacy group opposes abortion and same-sex marriage, and backs so-called "bathroom bills" that restrict transgender people's access to sex-segregated facilities.
The Southern Poverty Law Center has called the ADF an anti-LGBTQ hate group, though Barrett has previously noted that the SPLC's classification has been "a matter of public controversy."
Barrett spoke on five occasions at the Blackstone Legal Fellowship, a summer program run by the ADF, since 2011, according to tax filings reported by The Washington Post. One financial disclosure form from Barrett's 2017 Senate confirmation to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals showed she had received two $2,100 payments from ADF in 2015 and 2016.
The ADF has boasted of its efforts to restrict abortions across the country, and took credit for the legislation passed in Mississippi.
"I am happy to say the first 15-week limitation based on our model language was just introduced in the state of Mississippi this week," ADF's senior counsel, Denise Burke, said in 2018, according to the Jackson Free Press.
The group also congratulated Barrett when she was confirmed to the Supreme Court last year and expressed optimism that she would issue rulings favorable to them. The group issued a similar statement in 2018 when Justice Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed.
