National Organization for Women

June 13, 2007

Dear Senator:

As organizations committed to protecting reproductive rights, individual freedoms, and the separation of church and state, we write to voice our serious concerns about the nomination of Richard Honaker to the U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming, and to urge the Senate not to take up this nomination.

Honaker is a staunch anti-choice advocate who has not only repeatedly stated his view that legal abortion is the equivalent of murder, but has spent significant portions of his career fighting to deny women access to safe, legal reproductive-health services. For example, while serving in the Wyoming House of Representatives, Honaker put his extremist belief that "abortion kills innocent children" into action by twice pushing for legislation that would place a near-total ban on abortion services in the state. Though one bill failed in committee and the other never even made it that far, Honaker, undaunted, joined forces with an anti-choice advocacy group to place the proposal on the ballot as a statewide initiative. His views on abortion were so out of step with Wyoming voters that the ballot initiative was also handily defeated.

In addition to his documented hostility toward a woman's constitutional right to choose, Honaker's statements about how certain religious views should influence legal analysis call into question his ability to apply the law without prejudice and with appropriate respect for and deference to precedent. Specifically, Honaker advances a legal philosophy that elevates his personal view of Christianity over well-established constitutional and legal principles. Further, he disparages individual liberty and autonomy -- the foundations upon which constitutional protections of women's reproductive rights are built -- as an abandonment of what he characterizes as religious “absolute truths.” It is this resentment of certain constitutionally protected rights that run counter to his personal religious beliefs that raises serious concerns about Honaker's ability to resolve legal questions objectively.

Honaker's recent attempt to quell concerns about his extremist views only heightens those concerns. Honaker has stated that his nomination should not be a cause for concern for those who support a woman's right to choose because “it is unlikely that any case involving the abortion issue would ever come before” him as a presiding judge and that, even if he did hear an abortion rights case, “the losing party [could] appeal to the Tenth Circuit, and perhaps on to the United States Supreme Court, and nobody would remember what the trial judge did anyhow.”

He dismisses the decisions of U.S. District Court judges as unimportant and forgettable, an extremely troubling position, especially when held by a person nominated for a lifetime appointment to the District Court. Federal trial judges are charged with carrying out work critical to a case's ultimate success or failure. Such work includes presiding over essential fact-finding processes, deciding pretrial motions, declaring what a jury may consider in deliberations, and ruling on vital evidentiary matters. Statements such as Honaker's could reasonably call into question his respect for precedent -- a troubling prospect indeed. Litigants in Wyoming, and the nation as a whole, deserve a judge who will apply the law without prejudice, and who recognizes the impact that his decisions have on ordinary citizens.

We believe Honaker's position on reproductive rights coupled with his belief that his religious views should influence the interpretation of state and federal laws cast serious doubt on his ability to apply the law when that law runs against his personal beliefs. We urge the Senate not to take up the nomination of Richard Honaker to the U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

American Medical Women's Association
Americans United for the Separation of Church and State
Association of Reproductive Health Professionals
Center for Inquiry
Feminist Majority
Laramie Reproductive Health
Legal Momentum
NARAL Pro-Choice America
NARAL Pro-Choice Wyoming
National Abortion Federation
National Council of Jewish Women
National Organization for Women
National Partnership for Women and Families
National Women's Health Network
National Women's Law Center
Planned Parenthood Federation of America
Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains
Population Connection
Sexuality Information and Education Council of the U.S. (SIECUS)
Women's Action Network
Women for Women
Wyoming NOW

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