On Wednesday’s edition of CNN Newsroom with Brooke Baldwin and The Lead with Jake Tapper, CNN Chief Legal Analyst, Jeffrey Toobin expressed his anguish over the likelihood of President Trump nominating another Supreme Court Justice and forecasted the “doom” of Roe v Wade.
Toobin said the following at these time stamps:
2:55 p.m. Eastern
However, I mean the very important alternative consideration is some of the issues that Justice Kennedy is most closely associated with the protection of Roe v Wade, especially gay rights. No Justice has dominated one area of law the way Justice Kennedy has dominated gay rights. All of that is very much in jeopardy now that Donald Trump will name his replacement.
(....)
3:03 p.m. Eastern
Somebody has the last word and here it is the Supreme Court and Roe v. Wade is doomed. It is gone because Donald Trump won the election. And because he's going to have the chance to appoint two Supreme Court justices.
(....)
3:15 p.m. Eastern
What this appointment means is that if you are a woman in the state of Texas, you are going to have to go elsewhere to get an abortion soon. If you are in -- I said 20 states, maybe it’s only 10 states. But there will be large parts of United States where abortion is illegal in the relatively near future because of this appointment and because Donald Trump – Mitch McConnell stole the appointment of Merrick Garland.
(....)
4:07 p.m. Eastern
Roe v. Wade will be overturned and there is no doubt that the top priority of the people advising President Bush -- President Trump in this nomination is to pick someone that will overturn Roe v. Wade and the states will start passing bills to ban abortion altogether and I guarantee you in the next year the Supreme Court will have cases which will challenge Roe v. Wade and I think it is doomed and abortion will be illegal in a significant chunk of this country in 18 months.
Toobin’s reaction is not only unrealistic, but his tone shows a clear bias in favor of Roe v. Wade, implying that its overturning would be an inherently bad thing.
This is not the first time there has been media hysteria regarding abortion when a Republican is set to nominate a Supreme Court Justice. During the George H. W. Bush administration, President Bush was set to nominate a new Justice after Justice Brennan retired.
On July 22, 1990 Jack Smith of ABC News said: “With [Justice William] Brennan gone, there's a real chance the court will now go further and overturn Roe vs. Wade itself, the landmark 1973 court decision recognizing a constitutional right to abortion, and thus leave abortion entirely up to the 50 states”
When liberal agenda items are secured, the media are thrilled. However, when those same policies are threatened, the media immediately sound the alarm.
