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Justice Kavanaugh’s Yale classmates rally for Roe v. Wade

Ian Jacobs
300 protesters gathered around a women’s memorial fountain on Yale's campus to protest their former classmate and Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s position on abortion.

Yale University alumni protested their former classmate and Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s position on abortion at their reunion over the weekend. Kavanaugh, a 1990 Yale Law School alum, is expected to be the swing vote in a ruling on abortion rights this month.

Protesters expressed their frustrations at the Supreme Court’s expected overturning of Roe v. Wade.

Carrie Baker, a member of the class of 1987 who attended when Kavanaugh was an undergraduate, joined a crowd of 300 protesters that gathered around a women’s memorial fountain on campus. The fountain serves as a record of all the women who attended Yale since the university’s inception.

“I knew him, and the idea that he is prepared to take my rights away, and the rights of our daughters and our sons and other people, is appalling to me," Baker said. "You know, we need to hold him accountable."

Ian Jacobs
Carrie Baker, a member of the class of 1987 who attended when Kavanaugh was an undergraduate, speaking at the protest.

The overturning of the Roe ruling could end the national safeguard of abortion that has been in place since 1973. It would trigger restrictions or bans on abortion in at least 26 states.

Dr. Audrey Garrett, a gynecologic oncologist from the Yale class of 1987, said she is terrified at the prospect of the landmark ruling being overturned.

“There is no way to discern the difference between a miscarriage and a termination of pregnancy," Garett said. "We can’t tell these things, and so the danger is women are going to be criminalized.”

Three former Yale Students, Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, are all expected to vote to overturn the 1973 case that legalized abortions nationwide.

Clare is a former news fellow with WSHU Public Radio.