Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, a pivotal vote to confirm Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, said she doesn’t believe that he would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision legalizing abortion.
“I do not believe he’s going to repeal Roe v. Wade,” Collins said on Showtime when asked about how her decision to confirm a Supreme Court nominee would impact abortion rights.
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The comments from Collins aired Sunday but the interview occurred Friday, before the latest sexual misconduct allegations against Kavanaugh had surfaced.
On Sunday, the New Yorker published a piece in which a second woman, Deborah Ramirez, accused Kavanaugh of exposing himself at a party during a drinking game when they were both freshmen at Yale University, leading her to touch his penis without her consent. Kavanaugh has denied the account.
Collins is a centrist Republican who supports abortion rights, and if all Democrats oppose him then Kavanaugh needs all but one Republican vote to be confirmed.
Kavanaugh has not said how he would rule on abortion but Collins told reporters previously that he told her he considered it “settled law.” He also said during his confirmation hearings that Roe was “an important precedent of the Supreme Court that has been reaffirmed many times.”
Still, abortion rights groups have sounded the alarm about his appointment, reminding voters that President Trump said when he was running for office that he would be “putting pro-life justices on the court.” Should Roe be overturned, the extent to which abortion remains legal would fall to state lawmakers.
Collins said she was still undecided about whether she would vote to confirm Kavanaugh, saying that she first wanted to hear testimony from Christine Blasey Ford, the first woman who accused him of sexual assault.
Ford’s account describes a house party when they were both in high school 36 years ago in which an inebriated Kavanaugh molested her and tried to take off her clothes.
Kavanaugh has denied that the events she described took place. Both he and Ford are scheduled to testify Thursday before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
“I’m close, I’m very close,” Collins said of where she was on making a decision. “But I’m not all the way there yet. And Prof. Ford deserves to be heard.”
