A divided Senate Judiciary Committee has advanced a patently unqualified, ideologically extreme Trump nominee for the federal bench to the full Senate for a vote. The Senate will vote on Pitlyk TODAY, Wednesday, Dec. 4, and your legislators need to hear your voice in opposition to her confirmation.
Pitlyk has no trial experience, which is why the American Bar Association rates her as “unqualified” to be a judge. She is the fifth Trump administration nominee to receive this “unqualified” rating — the lowest rating a nominee can receive and virtually unheard of in other presidents’ judicial nominees.
Pitlyk is professionally unqualified for the role, but is ideologically aligned with the Trump administration’s Christian Nationalist agenda. Pitlyk has spent much of her legal career working to restrict women’s access to safe and legal abortions. She has equated hormonal contraceptives to abortion in an amicus brief arguing Hobby Lobby’s right to deny basic health care based on religious beliefs in defiance of the Affordable Care Act and has defended six-week abortion bans, as well as other draconian views on reproductive care.
Just yesterday, it was reported in the Huffington Post that she also opposes infertility treatments and surrogacy, stating that “surrogacy is harmful to mothers and children, so it’s a practice society should not be enforcing.”
Pitlyk has spent the last two years working at the Thomas More Society, a law firm dedicated to fighting for causes of the Religious Right, especially anti-choice cases motivated by Catholic religious dogma. Trump is willing to sacrifice the quality of the judiciary to ensure that judges are opponents of women’s health care.
Today, Dec. 4, the Senate will decide whether Pitlyk should be awarded a lifetime appointment to the federal bench. Currently, nearly one in four seats on U.S. appeals courts is filled by a judge nominated by Trump. The Senate is set to confirm a record 180 appointments to the federal bench by the end of this year. The Trump administration’s unprecedented number of appointments to the federal bench will reshape the judiciary for decades to come. It is critical that your senator hear your opposition to Pitlyk and similarly unqualified nominees.
Please use our automated system to contact both of your U.S. senators and ask them to oppose Pitlyk’s confirmation.
