How beholden is the Biden administration to the abortion industry and the liberal dark money groups that spent over $1.2 billion in 2020 to help elect him and Senate Democrats? Consider the president’s nomination of Julie Rikelman, who has dedicated her career to advocating no-limits abortion, to the First Circuit.
Until recently, Rikelman served as senior U.S. litigation director for the Center for Reproductive Rights, one of the most influential organizations in opposition to pro-life laws in the United States. It also pushes a pro-abortion agenda around the world and receives substantial funding from far-left groups that include George Soros’ Open Society Foundations and the Libra Foundation.
Biden could not have nominated a litigator more central to the cause of advancing judicial activism on abortion than Rikelman. In fact, she argued the last two abortion cases that made their way to the Supreme Court: Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, and June Medical Services L.L.C. v. Russo (2020). According to the dark-money group Alliance for Justice, she was intimately involved in “all key aspects” of Dobbs. Biden’s choice is not tantamount to nominating Harry Blackmun, the justice who wrote the decision in Roe v. Wade, to a lower court. It is more like nominating Sarah Weddington, the attorney who argued for the prevailing side in Roe.
After the Court handed down its decision overruling Roe in Dobbs, Rikelman railed, “I can’t emphasize enough what a cataclysmic change this will be, how much chaos we will see in the coming days and months.” She called the decision’s impact “swift and severe” and added that “we are on the verge of what may be the biggest public health crisis that we have seen in decades.”
That last part about “the biggest public health crisis in decades” prompts the question: Where has Rikelman been the last two and a half years? In its entirety, her statement reflects what should already be clear: She is an activist, one who was committed to keeping on the books one of the most egregious lines of judicial decisions in American history.
A gushing profile by CNN’s Ariane de Vogue and Betsy Klein describes “Biden’s move” as “an effort to bolster the bench with an expert on the issue at a time when more than half the states are prepared to ban if not further restrict the procedure.” “Expert” here is a euphemism for “activist.” And it reads eerily close to NARAL’s endorsement of Rikelman: “Having experts with demonstrable records of standing up for abortion rights like Julie Rikelman in the judicial branch will serve as a critical defense against future attacks on our rights.”
Alexis McGill Johnson, president of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, asserted that Rikelman has a “steadfast commitment to reproductive rights and the freedoms of all Americans. In this moment of uncertainty and unprecedented attacks on abortion, we need judges like Rikelman who will stand up for our rights and pursue equal justice for all.”
The hope is that rather than follow Dobbs, a Judge Rikelman would draw on her “expertise” to frustrate legislative decisions to regulate abortion.
On July 8, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights submitted a letter to President Biden signed by 18 far-left groups, including the Center for Reproductive Rights, that urged the use of executive authority to undermine the Court’s decision in Dobbs. That reflects these groups’ executive branch strategy.
Rikelman’s nomination reflects their judicial branch strategy.
The Leadership Conference, writing on behalf of a coalition of 230 groups—many of them part of the Left’s dark-money empire—touted her support of abortion in its endorsement of her.
While Rikelman was working at the Center for Reproductive Rights, the organization’s website stated,
In addition to challenging bans and clinic closing laws around the country, Julie’s other litigation work at the Center has included leading the Center’s efforts against invasive ultrasound laws, fighting to preserve access to medication abortion, and defending the rights of young people in Florida and Alaska to make their own reproductive health decisions.
Frustrating informed consent laws, pushing unrestricted access to medication abortion, and excluding parents from the “reproductive health decisions” of their minor daughters are all components of a “no-limits” abortion platform. Moreover, in 2018, Rikelman wrote an op-ed for the Huffington Post that called pro-life pregnancy resources centers “faux-clinics” the day after the Supreme Court struck down a California law demanding the centers advertise and promote the state’s low cost or free abortion services.
During Rikelman’s nomination hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Ted Cruz asked her, does she “believe that abortion should be legal up until the moment of birth, including in the ninth month?” Rikelman would not answer, saying only that “my personal views do not matter.” Actually, they do matter when you dedicate your career to urging judicial power grabs that are at their core an imposition of personal views thinly disguised as constitutional law.