Justice Amy Coney Barrett Addresses Aftermath of Roe v. Wade Decision in New Memoir

Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett defends her landmark decision to overturn the constitutional right to an abortion in a forthcoming memoir, arguing the court was “getting ahead of the American people,” according to an excerpt reviewed by CNN. Barrett—who initially opposed taking on the case but ultimately joined the majority’s 5-4 vote—argues in the book that the Supreme Court’s 1972 Roe v. Wade ruling was an error that “came at a cost.” “The evidence does not show that the American people have traditionally considered the right to obtain an abortion so fundamental to liberty that it ‘goes without saying’ in the Constitution,” she writes, according to the excerpt. “In fact, the evidence cuts in the opposite direction. Abortion not only lacked long-standing protection in American law – it had long been forbidden.” TIME has not independently reviewed the book, but has reached out to the publisher, Penguin Random House, for comment. Read more: Exclusive: Inside the Preparations for Trump’s Next Supreme Court Nominee Listening to the Law, for which Coney Barrett reportedly received a $2 million advance, includes insight into her decision-making process in the court. “(T)he Court’s role is to respect the choices that the people have agreed upon, not to tell them what they should agree to,” Barrett writes in her memoir.  Barrett was personally selected by Trump in 2020 to establish a conservative majority on the court following the passing of liberal justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The majority allowed conservatives to achieve a long-held wish of overturning Roe v. Wade, a previous Supreme Court decision that codified the right to abortion nationwide.   Barrett has sided with the conservative majority in many cases, bolstering national gun rights, ending affirmative action, and limiting the ability of federal judges to issue nationwide injunctions in a more recent birthright citizenship decision. But she has also become the Republican-appointed justice who is most likely to be in the majority for decisions with a liberal outcome, and has sided with the President the least in Trump-related cases, according to the New York Times. The justice notes the intensifying public pressure the Supreme Court has received in recent years in her book. “While the intensity of the challenges faced by the Court ebbs and flows, the challenges themselves will never disappear,” Barrett writes. “Throughout, the job of every justice is to do his or her best by the law.” A historic low of 39% of Americans approve of the way the Supreme Court is handling its job, according to a Gallup poll. Listening to the Law will be published on Sept. 9