Congresswoman Chu, Planned Parenthood Advocates Call For U.S. Senate’s Rejection of Kavanaugh Nomination to Supreme Court

U.S. Congresswoman Judy Chu, who represents Pasadena in Congress, is set to join local Planned Parenthood supporters at a Monday press conference calling on all U.S. senators to reject Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“The Trump Administration continues to attack women’s reproductive health care, and by nominating Judge Kavanaugh, is laying the groundwork to overturn Roe v. Wade – the 1973 decision that affirmed the right to access safe, legal abortion – and take away a woman’s right to make her own choices about her body and her life,” Chu said in a statement.

Judge Kavanaugh, who has been with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit since May 30, was nominated last month and has submitted his responses to a 110-page questionnaire along with more than 2,000 pages of accompanying material to the Senate Judiciary Committee, as the U.S. Senate prepares to schedule his confirmation hearings.

The 53-year-old nominee served for more than five years in the White House with President George W. Bush. From July 2003 until May 2006, he was Assistant to the President and Staff Secretary to the President. From 2001 to 2003, he was Associate Counsel and then Senior Associate Counsel to the President.

Judge Kavanaugh was a partner at Kirkland and Ellis in Washington, D.C., from 1997 to 1998, and again from 1999 to 2001. From 1994 to 1997 and for a period in 1998, Judge Kavanaugh was Associate Counsel in the Office of Independent Counsel Kenneth W. Starr.

Judge Kavanaugh graduated from Yale Law School in 1990, where he was a Notes Editor of the Yale Law Journal, and from Yale College in 1987.

In her statement, Chu said people throughout California are demanding that their constitutional rights be protected, including access to abortion.

Planned Parenthood and its partners are holding over 50 events nationwide to highlight the fact that public support for Roe v. Wade is reportedly at a record high of 72 percent, including 52 percent of Republicans, according to the statement.

Citing Gallup polls, Chu said public support for Judge Kavanaugh “is lower than any other Supreme Court nominee, since 1987.”