Pitlyk did not return messages seeking comment last month.

Representatives of U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley and U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt, both Republicans, also did not return messages last month seeking comment. On Twitter, both praised Pitlyk Wednesday.

Pitlyk graduated summa cum laude from Boston College before receiving master’s degrees in philosophy from Georgetown University and in applied biomedical ethics from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium, where she was a Fulbright Scholar, her bio says.

She graduated from Yale in 2008. Students for Life lauded the announcement Thursday, saying Pitlyk founded Yale Law Students for Life.

Pitlyk practiced food and drug regulatory law at the Covington & Burling firm in Washington and clerked for Brett M. Kavanaugh, who was an appeals court judge at the time and now sits on the U.S. Supreme Court.