While acknowledging that Democrats have few means to stop a Trump Supreme Court nominee, Sen. Dianne Feinstein said she is hopeful that women will make their voices heard on that issue in a critical year. | Jose Luis Magana/AP Photo Feinstein: Trump’s court nominee ‘could eviscerate women’s freedoms for generations’

OAKLAND — California Sen. Dianne Feinstein warned that President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, who is set to be announced Monday, “could eviscerate women’s freedoms for generations.’’

“The American people must know what’s at stake in this nomination ... because overturning Roe would take us back to the days of women being seriously injured and dying because they can’t get basic medical care,” said Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, on Friday. “We’ve come too far to go back to those days.”


Feinstein, who appeared at an Oakland roundtable discussion held by California Planned Parenthood, acknowledged that with Republican control of the White House and Congress, the power of female voters may be “the only thing we have right now” in the effort to counter Trump’s next appointment to the Supreme Court.

The California senator said she hasn’t talked directly to two female Republican senators — Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine — who are expected to be the swing votes in the confirmation of the justice who will replace the retiring Anthony Kennedy. But, she added, “I do know that they’re pro-choice — and pro-choice is a responsibility.”

As an example of the imminent dangers to women’s health from the Trump administration, Feinstein cited the Trump administration’s new efforts to institute a “gag rule” on doctors and care professionals in the Title X program, which provides health care to hundreds of thousands of low-income women in California alone. The senator issued a call to action to female voters to write, call and contact their legislative officials to protest the decision in the public comment period which ends July 31.

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A decision by the federal Department of Health and Human Services announced in June calls for barring Title X providers — who received federal funding to provide services to millions of low-income women — not only from providing abortions, but from discussing them with patients.

While acknowledging that Democrats have few means to stop a Trump Supreme Court nominee, Feinstein said she is hopeful that women will make their voices heard on that issue in a critical year. “The day after the inauguration, women marched and came together by the millions,’’ and women are running to office in record numbers this year, she told a crowd of Planned Parenthood activists here. “So for the first time, since I was elected — which was some time ago — we are totally poised to have another ‘year of the woman’ in November.”

“This is why we ask that the next nominee be postponed until after the election,’’ she said. “We say wait. Let’s see what the people have to say in November.”

