Julie Rikelman, litigation director at the Center for Reproductive Rights, speaks to media outlets outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington after oral arguments in the Louisiana abortion clinic case June Medical Services v Russo, on March 4, 2020. (Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM)
The Senate Judiciary Committee deadlocked on the nomination of Julie Rikelman for U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. Rikelman argued for the abortion clinic in the case that led to the overturning of the landmark ruling that established the right to an abortion.
The committee tied 11-11 on Rikelman’s nomination to the Boston-based federal appeals court. Rikelman is a senior litigation director for the Center for Reproductive Rights and represented a Mississippi clinic that challenged the state’s ban on terminating pregnancies after 15 weeks in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health case before the U.S. Supreme Court, in which the majority overturned the right to an abortion established in the 1973 opinion Roe v. Wade.
