Thanks to Nuclear Option, Begich and Rest Of Senate Dems Confirm Radical Judge

She’s the kind of nominee the Democrats went nuclear for. Cornelia “Nina” Pillard was confirmed by a 51-44 vote in the U.S. Senate in the middle of the night last night, as a judge on the powerful D.C. Circuit court. Prior to the nuclear option, she would have been (justifiably) filibustered and blocked.

Her views on a myriad of subjects are clearly outside the mainstream. Consider, for example, Pillard’s thoughts on abortion. This is from 2007: ”Casting reproductive rights in terms of equality holds promise to recenter the debate…away from the deceptive images of fetus-as-autonomous-being that the anti-choice movement has popularized…” (Bold mine.) (page 990)

This suggests a sort of anti-science view that is especially worrisome when found in someone who is supposed to put facts (and the law) ahead of political ideology. It’s a position that’s meant to serve her political theory, but flies in the face of science. Sonograms, of course, have changed the game. People put these pictures on their Facebook wall precisely because it’s very obviously their child. Nothing else quite captures her doctrinaire rigidity better than this statement.)

She went on to argue that limiting abortion “reinforces broader patterns of discrimination against women as a class of presumptive breeders…” (p.975) and that abortion rights “play a central role in freeing women from historically routine conscription into maternity.”…

The only good news for conservative? Vulnerable Democratic Senators like Mark Begich and Mary Landrieu are now on the record as supporting Pillard’s radical agenda. (And I guess the question over whether Bob Casey, Jr. was ever really pro-Life has been settled.)

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