Planned Parenthood Urges Senate to Defeat Confirmation of Brown
For Immediate Release: Jan. 30, 2014
WASHINGTON, D.C.— Today the Senate voted for cloture on the nomination of Janice Rogers Brown to the federal court of appeals, by a count of 65 to 32, ending debate.
A confirmation vote is expected tomorrow. Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) strongly urges the Senate to defeat the confirmation of California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown, an unacceptable, out of the mainstream nominee, to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
"Brown is too far outside the mainstream to even nominate, no less sit on a federal court for life," said PPFA Interim President Karen Pearl. "She has shown disregard for women's health and safety and hostility to anti-discrimination laws that would protect women's access to comprehensive health care."
While sitting on the California Supreme Court, Brown was often isolated from her peers on the bench by her extremist ideology and opinions that opposed safeguarding privacy, fighting discrimination, and protecting the health of the state's citizens. In her lone dissent in a 2004 ruling that upheld California's contraceptive equity law, the Women's Contraception Equity Act, Brown showed an astonishing callousness to the claims of women facing discrimination from their insurers. According to her opinion, the problem of contraceptive inequity was not the court's concern, ignoring discrimination that nearly three-quarters of Americans believe needs to be remedied by state and federal laws.
"The few years Brown has been on the court have been far too many as is," added Pearl. "Having her on the federal bench for life would be a setback for all women. Planned Parenthood will vigorously oppose this nomination."
PPFA, the world's largest and most trusted voluntary family planning organization, has a longstanding history of working to ensure the protection of reproductive freedoms as well as working to advance the social, economic and political rights of women. Because lower federal courts exercise enormous power in deciding cases involving individual liberties, personal privacy, and other basic civil liberties, PPFA believes that judges appointed to these courts must demonstrate a commitment to safeguarding these fundamental rights.