“Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation deals a devastating blow to the confirmation process, and to women and all survivors of sexual assault. The expectation that the Supreme Court will deal fairly and dispassionately in the foreseeable future regarding the cases brought before it, has been seriously compromised. As an organization that has worked for nearly 20 years to support a fair and independent federal judiciary, the National Council of Jewish Women is outraged that the highest court in our nation will no longer be a place where balance and respect is given to all parties in a dispute.

“In the end, there were myriad issues that gave pause to Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation to a lifetime seat on the Supreme Court. His expressed hostility to every woman’s right to access abortion care was most obvious in his dissent from an appellate decision a year ago, when he accused the majority of creating ‘a new right for unlawful immigrant minors in US government detention to obtain immediate abortion on demand.’ Calling that ‘a radical extension of the Supreme Court’s abortion jurisprudence,’ he borrowed the phrase ‘abortion on demand” from the anti-abortion movement three times.  His later assertions to assuage doubters that Roe v. Wade is ‘settled law’ are meaningless in the context of his clear hostility and the opinions of the current court, which has overturned longstanding precedent multiple times on gun regulation, campaign finance, voting rights enforcement, worker’s rights, and administrative law.

“The accusation of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford that Judge Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her in high school was compelling. His lack of candor regarding his repeated instances of inebriation to near incapacitation during high school and college tainted his entire testimony regarding this incident and others.

“Judge Kavanaugh’s resort to an emotional, accusatory outpouring asserting his innocence (written out by him in advance of his appearance before the committee on September 27) veered into partisan and conspiratorial territory. His accusations that a wide swath of the American political spectrum sought to destroy him (his word) rendered his testimony not credible. His disrespect for Democratic senators asking him perfectly reasonable questions lead us to the conclusion that he lacks the requisite dispassion and regard for the truth that is the underpinning of what we mean by the term judicial temperament.

We will now face a highly conservative court where women, survivors, and many other vulnerable people in our society can no longer look to the Supreme Court as their last hope for justice to prevail. And a terrible precedent has now been set for the lowered standard employed for confirmation to the court. Today is a sad day for Americans who have believed our democracy is a model for the rest of the world.