"I feel misled."
That is what Maine Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican, said to the New York Times this weekend about following Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh's decision to join a majority of U.S. Supreme Court justices in overturning Roe v. Wade.
WATCH ANYTIME FOR FREE
 |
Stream NBC10 Boston news for free, 24/7, wherever you are. |
The decision was announced Friday. Over the weekend, Collins remained under fire from activists and others who support abortion rights in Maine and beyond for her nod of approval of Kavanaugh in his 2018 confirmation in the Senate.
At the time, Collins said she believed Kavanaugh viewed Roe v. Wade as "settled law" that he would likely not support overturning.
Get updates on what's happening in Boston to your inbox. Sign up for our News Headlines newsletter.
Collins herself supports the abortion protections that were in Roe v. Wade being federal law.
But in the opinion released Friday, Kavanaugh did support overturning the landmark ruling.
More on Roe v. Wade and abortion rights
In a statement, Collins described the court’s rejection of a half-century-old precedent as "not conservative," adding that "it is a sudden and radical jolt to the country that will lead to political chaos, anger, and a further loss of confidence in our government."
She went on to say that "this decision is inconsistent with what Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh said in their testimony and their meetings with me, where they both were insistent on the importance of supporting long-standing precedents that the country has relied upon."
"I think she’s likely to be angry," said Dr. Andrew Rudalevige, chair of the Department of Government and Legal Studies at Bowdoin College, explaining that while Collins is leading a push to codify the rights that were in Roe v. Wade into federal law with a bill in Congress, she is unlikely to support diminishing the threshold required by the Senate’s filibuster to get that legislation passed.
Rudalevige also thinks that Collins' general track record of not supporting radical change diminishes her chances of calling for the impeachment of a supreme court justice because she felt misled.
"I do think that’s an unlikely path," he said.
