A pro-life sidewalk counselor expressed concern before members of the U.S. Senate Thursday that Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson has misrepresented people like her.
“When I see a woman approaching…I always say, ‘Good morning! I’m Eleanor. How can I help you?’” said Eleanor McCullen, an 85-year-old Catholic grandmother located near Boston, describing how she greets women outside abortion clinics.
“It’s a powerful moment when a woman looks at me and our eyes connect, and she stops to talk,” McCullen stressed during her March 24 testimony. “It’s in that moment I promise her she will never walk her journey alone.”
McCullen testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee during the Jackson’s confirmation hearings. She told Catholic News Agency that she has dedicated 22 years to empowering women. Located in Newton, she engages with pregnant women considering abortion outside a Planned Parenthood in Boston.
“So many women I’ve met believe that their only choice is to end the life of their baby,” McCullen told senators. “It is in that moment of isolation and fear, that I have the privilege of offering a different choice—one that empowers and encourages the woman to know she is fully capable of becoming a mom and pursuing a job and going to school and having a successful and happy life.”
McCullen introduced herself as the lead plaintiff in a 2014 Supreme Court case regarding free speech. In that case, McCullen v. Coakley, the Supreme Court unanimously struck down a Massachusetts law that imposed a 35-foot “buffer zone” around abortion clinics, which prevented sidewalk counselors from speaking with women entering those clinics. Faith-based legal organization Alliance Defending Freedom helped with the case.
The court’s opinion in the case mentions another case, McGuire v. Reilly, which involved Jackson. In 2001, Jackson co-authored an amicus brief in McGuire v. Reilly, in support of a Massachusetts “buffer zone” law, pro-life groups, such as Susan B. Anthony List, have cautioned.
In the amicus brief Jackson wrote on behalf of abortion groups, pro-life leaders previously told Senate leaders, she “portrayed pro-life sidewalk counselors as a ‘hostile, noisy crowd of ‘in-your-face protesters.’”
McCullen appeared to respond to accusations like this in her testimony.
“I was deeply saddened to find out that Judge Jackson, while in private practice, advocated in favor of Massachusetts’ previous ‘buffer zone’ law in her amicus brief on behalf of abortion clinics,” McCullen said. “She and her colleagues maligned pro-life sidewalk counselors, characterizing us in ugly and false ways….”
The above comes from a March 25 story on the site of the Catholic News Agency.
May God Bless this grandmother for fighting the good fight!
Ketanji has shown that she’s out of touch with reality and therefore unqualified to be a judge. She not only shouldn’t be elevated to the Supreme Court; she should be removed from the judiciary altogether.
If Ketanji is what law schools are producing, America is doomed.
This is what affirmative action has wrought.
There’s already a black on the Supreme Court. But there are no Asians and never have been. Why didn’t Applesauce Brains commit to making a historic decision to nominate the first Asian to be on the Supreme Court? Even that would have been improperly taking race into account, but it would have been novel.
Just nominate the most qualified person based on intellect and record and character, no need to look at skin color. Kiltanji doesn’t measure up as a legal intellect.
Asian? They are almost as bad as whites (sarc)
They might be worse. On average, they have higher incomes and seem to work harder in school than all the rest of us.
What we really need on the Supreme Court is a Rastafarian or a Baha’i. We’ve never had one on the Supreme Court, maybe not even in Congress.
And, at least the Baha’is are prolife.
3/5 stars
I applaud Eleanor for her mild retort to Brown Jackson’s slander. But I would choose a more acerbic approach: I’d say “Given that people like you have abetted the slaughter of over 60 million American children, why are you surprised when some people get angry about it?”
God bless you Eleanor. You are a Spiritual Warier on the front lines of the culture of death. Keep doing what you are doing. It’s the judge that does not know what she is doing. This poor woman is so confused she doesn’t even know who and what she is. Is it no wonder that America and the Democrats are in a mess and state of mass confusion. God has severely punished mankind sending a spirit of confusion to punish the world. This mass confusion seems to affect the Democratic Party more than the Republicans. The women’s movement should look and study the life of Saint Benedicta of the Cross Edith Stein. She was a leading intellect in Europe during the 1920’s and would make a perfect role model for the women’s movement. She died a courageous and spectacular death in a concentration camp even though she was a Catholic Nun. For close to 75 years or more the women’s movement used Margaret Sanger as their role model even she was well known by the Nazi’s for being a eugenicist who believed in aborting black children over white children. That it took them almost 75 years to change their support of Sanger is quite staggering to the imagination. The late Comedian Jackie Mason was once asked in an interview: What he thought about the women’s movement? Jackie’s dead pan reply, “I like women’s movement.” The women’s movement would absolutely love Saint Benedicta of the Cross as their new role model. PRAY! PRAY! PRAY!
Eleanor McCullen looks like a very dangerous person to me. Tolerance has to have some limits. A Silent Generation cisgendered White theist is clearly beyond the pale.