An Open Letter to Justice Amy Coney Barrett

By Emilia Lebeau ‘24

    Dear Justice Amy Coney Barrett,
    I am writing this address imploring you to rethink your banning of abortions, out of concern for my future and the futures of other women across the United States.

    As a girl, who along with the rest of my generation will one day be at the head of this country, I want to see the brightest, safest future, and I hope you do too. Though you may have never experienced an unanticipated pregnancy, whether it be the product of sexual assault or accident, many women like you have. Thus it is ignorant to think a fetus who could not survive outside their mother’s womb is worth condemning a woman to a life of premature motherhood that is forced upon her.
    If a woman has a child at a time in her life when she is unready to commit to raising a baby she never asked for (nor was able to prevent the conception if you ban birth control as well), it is not beneficial to her or to her theoretical child. This fetus you are so focused on protecting would probably be born into an unstable home with a likely single mother who is unprepared to raise it on her own.
    This is not to say having an unstable life is worse than not being born at all, but as you are claiming to be so concerned about this unborn baby, did you ever think about its life after it leaves the womb? You are fighting for its life while at the same time fighting to take away any government services that would protect it (including affordable education and healthcare) or anything that would give it at least some stability if its mother is unprepared to care for a child with little to no support. Although another life is coming into this world, that may end up creating a burden for the mother. Though I understand your desire to protect any theoretical human life, the life of the mother should come first.
    You’re claiming to be pro-life while in actuality you value the life of a fetus more than that of a living breathing girl. You are condemning her to a life of maternity that she had no way of preventing, restraining her from her true passions and aspirations. Yes, the fetus’ life is important, but it should not exceed the life of the human being carrying it.
    You cannot claim all lives matter then threaten womens’ rights; gay marriage; transgender healthcare; black lives; Latinx homes in this country; and support for the underprivileged across America. You do not get to pick and choose whose rights you will fight for and whose you will not while claiming you are pro-life. 
    If you really care about this theoretical child as much as you say you do, you would let the woman determine whether or not she would be able to provide for it as well as still attending to her own needs. So many women in America are impoverished to a point where they can barely afford basic resources for themselves, so stepping into a maternal role and raising a child when they cannot even take care of themselves is insensitive beyond belief.
    It also is worth mentioning that your opposition to abortions is based in part on your conservative Christian beliefs because according to the Bible, abortions are unethical. However, abortions were never explicitly mentioned as they were not conceptualized at the time. The text says “you shall not murder,” which is then applied to abortion. This application of the text then brings up another important argument: is abortion murder?
    You can argue yes, it is murder because the fetus is alive and in several months will be an independent, functioning creature, and aborting it will eliminate any potential it has to be live. In the womb, it relies on its mother for nutrients and incubation but once ready, it will be able to operate on its own.
    The fact that it is not yet an independently functioning human being is key because murder is the act of killing another human being. An abortion is the termination of a theoretical, future human life, but at that moment, fetuses are not living entities. Unlike their mothers, they cannot feel, think or have any awareness of their situation. They only gain consciousness at five months and still do not have complex thoughts and desires until later in life, so in actuality, it is not a child or baby you are so focused on saving, it is tissue that depends on another human and has the mere potential to become a human being. 
    If you do not believe in abortion, there is no reason to condemn every female in America to those same ideals. 
    As a justice on the Supreme Court, you above all people must understand the seriousness of separating church from state, so using the Bible as your source for why you are pro-life is completely unacceptable. Being pro-life is an opinion not to be projected onto all women in America. If you do not believe in abortions, do not get one, but forcing your opinions onto every single woman in America is ridiculous.
    By banning abortions, you are undoing the lifetime of work done by your predecessor, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who made it her goal to give women control over their bodies, money and lives. You are unraveling centuries of effort put out by women before you who have made it their life’s sole purpose to win rights and with one case, one vote, you can tear that all apart.
    I am not expecting you to contradict your personal beliefs, but all I ask is that you respect the choice of women across America. You will impact hundreds of thousands of girls across the country who dream of being doctors, lawyers, actresses and even Supreme Court justices, who now may be forced to cut their prime years short and take care of another man’s child. Do you realize the effect your rulings will have on our future? I hope so, otherwise, every woman will be in a great deal of trouble. 
    Women deserve the right to choose whether or not they want an abortion no matter whose religious values it crosses, and as a judge, you have no place interfering. This is a decision that should fall at the hands of the mother, and the mother alone.