Senate Questions Anti-Choice Judicial Nominee
Yesterday, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on anti-choice Richard Honaker’s nomination for a lifetime appointment as a federal district judge to the U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming.
Throughout his career, Richard Honaker has worked to undermine a woman’s right to access abortion care. While in the Wyoming Legislature, Honaker introduced two bills that would have created a near total-ban on abortion in the state. When the bills failed, Honaker then served as counsel to an organization formed to place the abortion ban on the 1994 Wyoming state-wide ballot. Wyoming voters overwhelmingly rejected the measure.
Honaker has repeatedly stated his view that legal abortion is the equivalent of murder, and has criticized Supreme Court decisions establishing the legal right to an abortion. His statements and writings on the role of religion in the law also raise concerns about whether he would follow established precedent if the resulting decision would be inconsistent with his personal beliefs. Given his extensive history of anti-abortion activism and his extremist legal philosophy, Honaker is clearly an inappropriate judicial candidate and his confirmation to the court would threaten the reproductive rights of women in Wyoming.
Read NAF’s statement opposing Richard Honaker’s nomination.
Labels: abortion bans, access, anti-choice, ballot initiatives
