Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) is prematurely celebrating a possible end to Roe v. Wade now that the Senate has confirmed Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.
Shortly after Kavanaugh’s appointment was confirmed, King shared a photo of a sleeping baby wearing a bow and wrote, “Soon, babies like this little angel will be protected in the womb by law.”
The identity of the baby in the tweet was unclear.
King, whose white supremacist views the GOP has largely ignored, is one of the most vocal opponents of abortion in Congress.
Like other Republicans, he sees Kavanaugh as a justice who would sweeten the chances of reversing Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that affirmed women’s constitutional right to legal abortion.
But while Kavanaugh’s past rulings on access to abortion and contraception may hint at an end to Roe v. Wade, his presence on the Supreme Court doesn’t necessarily guarantee it.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who supports abortion rights but voted to confirm Kavanaugh, argued during a speech on the Senate floor on Friday that Kavanaugh was not going to vote to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Collins said he privately assured her that “decisions become part of our legal framework with the passage of time and that honoring precedent is essential to maintaining public confidence.”
During his hearing in early September, Kavanaugh also described Roe v. Wade as “settled Supreme Court precedent” and acknowledged that it was “reaffirmed many times,” making it a “precedent on a precedent.”
People responded to King’s tweet to highlight the hypocrisy of sharing a photo of a baby girl while supporting policies that hurt women’s access to health care, opposing commonsense gun laws in light of school shootings, and supporting a Supreme Court nominee who was accused of sexually assaulting a girl when he was a teenager.
King’s behavior on Twitter has been suspect in recent months, making him appear to be an outright white supremacist. The Republican has promoted the views of prominent white nationalists, including Lana Lokteff, host of media outfit Red Ice (designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group), and British neo-Nazi Mark Collett.
Just last month, he disparaged Kavanaugh’s accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, by sharing a meme that suggested she was lying about her assault for Hillary Clinton.
King, who has served eight terms in Congress, is up for re-election this November against Democrat J.D. Scholten.
