By Steve Holland and Lawrence Hurley
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Amy Coney Barrett, President Donald Trump’s pick for a U.S. Supreme Court vacancy, said she will rule based on the law, not her personal views, in prepared remarks issued on Sunday ahead of her Senate confirmation hearing this week.
Barrett, a conservative appeals court judge, said that in her current job she has “done my utmost to reach the result required by the law, whatever my own preferences might be.”
A devout Catholic who has a record of opposing abortion rights, Barrett is likely to be probed by Senate Democrats on that issue in particular. If Barrett is confirmed to the position by the Republican-controlled Senate, the court would have a 6-3 conservative majority. Conservative activists hope the court will overturn the 1973 ruling, Roe v. Wade, that legalized abortion nationwide.
Trump nominated Barrett to replace liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died last month.
Barrett said in the statement that it will be an “honor of a lifetime” to serve alongside the current eight justices and explained how she approaches cases.
“When I write an opinion resolving a case, I read every word from the perspective of the losing party. I ask myself how would I view the decision if one of my children was the party I was ruling against,” she wrote.
Barrett, 48, who has seven children, would be the fifth woman to serve on the court. Before Trump appointed her to the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Barrett was a professor at Notre Dame Law School in Indiana.
(Reporting by Steve Holland and Lawrence Hurley, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien and Lisa Shumaker)
