National Nurses United (NNU), the largest union of registered nurses in the United States, announced today its opposition to the confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court of the United States. NNU is calling on the U.S. Senate to reject Kavanaugh’s nomination.

In a letter sent to members of the Senate today, NNU Co-Presidents Deborah Burger, RN, and Jean Ross, RN, wrote, “We have no doubt that Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court would have drastic consequences for nurses, our patients, and communities. For these reasons, we urge you to vote against his confirmation.”

Read full letter here >>

Ross and Burger cited the allegations of sexual assault that were made public by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and are calling on the U.S. Senate to hear out those allegations, noting “any person who has committed sexual assault is unfit to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States.”

The NNU Co-Presidents went on to say regardless of the recent allegation, “NNU strongly opposes Kavanaugh’s confirmation based on his judicial record, his dishonesty during sworn testimony, and the lack of transparency that has mired his confirmation process.”
 
Burger and Ross wrote, “Judge Kavanaugh’s bias in favor of corporations over working women and men is well documented,” and they cite numerous incidents when the judge has shown this bias in cases involving efforts to limit legal union authority or activity.  When “the D.C. Circuit upheld an Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission’s (OSHA) safety citation against SeaWorld following the third death of an animal trainer who had been working with a killer whale, Judge Kavanaugh strongly dissented and characterized the government’s role in protecting such workers as ‘paternalistic’,” they wrote.
 
Furthermore, Burger and Ross note that Kavanaugh has shown deference to executive governmental authority. “For example, he allowed the Department of Defense to eliminate collective bargaining rights for their workers, a gross attack on workers’ rights in this country,” they wrote.
 
Burger and Ross noted Kavanaugh has been hostile to the Affordable Care Act which helped expand medical coverage to Americans. In addition, Burger and Ross cite Kavanaugh’s characterization of contraceptives as “abortion-inducing drugs” as “alarming” and indicates “a fundamental misunderstanding of medications that a vast majority of American women use to protect their own health and well-being. Based on his comments about contraception, it is clear that Judge Kavanaugh cannot be trusted to deliberate impartially on issues that could affect women’s access to necessary health care.”