Why This Group of Nuns Is Defending Neil Gorsuch

After President Donald Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court, Democrats promised a fight, calling the federal appeals judge an extremist and a threat to women’s health care.

“I have deep, serious concerns about Judge Gorsuch,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. “An extreme ideologue on the court will threaten privacy rights, including women’s health care, worker and consumer protections, and public health and safety.”

Some of that criticism dates to a 2015 dissenting opinion by Gorsuch and four other judges of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in support of the religious freedom of the Little Sisters of the Poor, an order of Catholic nuns who care for the sick and elderly.

After being forced to provide contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs to employees under an Obamacare provision, the nuns had sued. The Daily Signal caught up with the Little Sisters to examine how Gorsuch sided with them and hear why the nuns say his opponents misrepresent the Supreme Court nominee.

This text has been modified to specify that Gorsuch joined a dissenting opinion.