All people with a brain were shocked and outraged Wednesday after Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first black woman nominated to the Supreme Court, refused to define the word “woman” on the grounds that, as she put it, “I’m not a biologist.”
Jackson made the comment during a Tuesday exchange with Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) in which the lawmaker asked the DC Circuit Court of Appeals judge point-blank: “Can you provide a definition for the word ’woman’?
After a short back-and-forth, Jackson ultimately said: “No, I can’t.”
“You can’t?” Blackburn asked.
“Not in this context. I’m not a biologist,” Jackson said.
Clips of the exchange spread like wildfire online, with critics noting Jackson’s reluctance to state the biological fact of sex.
“I’m not a brain surgeon but I know what a brain is. This is where ‘progressive’ thinking leads – to a terror of stating basic unarguable facts lest it offend the woke brigade,” tweeted one person.
“This shouldn’t have to be said,” tweeted former Trump adviser Stephen Miller, “but if you don’t know what a women is, you shouldn’t be in any position of responsibility — let alone decide the fate of the Republic from our nation’s highest court.”
“Certainly ironic to have a full day of encomia to Jackson being the first black woman nominated for the job, capped by Jackson saying she doesn’t know what a woman is,” tweeted National Review writer Dan McLaughlin, who added in a subsequent post: “The 19th Amendment lists ‘sex’ as a prohibited basis for discrimination against voting rights, & abortion advocates sometimes argue that the propensity of women to get pregnant means that gender equity requires a right to abortion, so defining what a woman is? Not irrelevant.”
“The last thing Americans need is their judicial line of defense to be even more corrupted by someone who refuses to acknowledge what a woman is,” Jordan Boyd editorialized at The Federalist. “Democrats, the corrupt corporate media, and even some of the GOP establishment are fighting tooth and nail and even lying to push for Jackson’s confirmation, but the nominee’s lenience on child porn offenders, ties to and endorsements from the abortion industry, and inability to answer the simplest of questions should disqualify her from assuming the bench.”
Though Jackson claimed to be unable to define the word “woman,” she used it at several points while answering questions Tuesday — including when she insisted that the Supreme Court’s decisions in Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey “are the settled law … concerning the right to terminate a woman’s pregnancy.”
However, she returned to the “I’m not a biologist” excuse Wednesday during questioning by Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who was grilling her over whether Roe v. Wade could be overturned and when a fetus was viable.Sen. Marsha Blackburn asked Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson to define the word “woman” in relation to the Equal Protection Clause.
“What does viability mean when it comes to an unborn child in your understanding?” Cornyn asked.
“Senator, I hesitate to speculate. I know that it is a point in time that the court has identified in terms of when — the standards that apply to regulation of the right,” she said.
“No one suggests that a 20-week-old fetus can live independently outside the mother’s womb, do they?” the Texas senator asked.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“The child will need to be fed, sheltered, and all of the other essentials to sustain human life. So there is no suggestion that after 20 weeks a child can live independently, correct?” Cornyn asked.
“Senator, I’m not a biologist. I haven’t studied this. I don’t know.” she replied.
Later in the day, Jackson attempted to clean up her misstep from Tuesday night in response to a question from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).
“Yesterday, under questioning from Senator Blackburn, you told her that you cannot define what a woman is … I think you are the only Supreme Court nominee in history who has been unable to answer the question, ‘What is a woman,'” Cruz said. “How would you determine if a plaintiff had Article III standing to challenge a gender-based rule, regulation, policy without being able to determine what a woman was?”
“Senator,” Jackson responded. “I know I am a woman, I know Senator Blackburn is a woman, and the woman I admire most in the world is in the room today, my mother.”
