Collins Defends Linking RBG To 'Babies That Have Been Murdered'

GEORGIA — Rep. Doug Collins is defending his tweet shortly after Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died linking her to the death of "more than 30 million innocent babies that have been murdered.”

“I will never back down on life,” Collins said Saturday to a reporter from WSB-TV in Atlanta. “Sometimes in life, there’s just polite, and there’s just the truth. That was the truth."

Even though Ginsburg joined the Supreme Court in 1993 — 20 years after Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision that legalized abortion — Collins told WXIA-TV in Atlanta that the liberal justice was “actively involved in that fight, from a legal standpoint, while she was still an attorney before she was ever appointed to the court."

Collins is competing in a special election for the Senate seat currently held by Kelly Loeffler, who was appointed by Gov. Brian Kemp after Johnny Isakson retired for health reasons.

Loeffler’s response was more deferential, saying that her “prayers are with the Ginsburg family,” but she added that President Donald Trump had “every right to pick a new justice before the election” that would “protect the right to life.”

The leading Democratic candidate for the seat, Rev. Raphael Warnock, shot back immediately.

"Justice Ginsburg nobly gave her life to public service, and this is what my opponents had to say tonight," Warnock tweeted. "We need to bring back decency, dignity and respect to American political speech."

As of Monday, Collins’ tweet had drawn more than 46,000 replies both for and against, with no end in sight.

Senator David Perdue, who’s running against Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff to keep Georgia’s other Senate seat, called Ginsburg “a trailblazer and brilliant legal mind” whose friendship with conservative Justice Antonin Scalia “should inspire us all.”

Still, Perdue said Sunday he supported Trump’s push to replace Ginsburg as soon as possible.

“I am confident that President Trump will nominate another highly-qualified candidate who will strictly uphold the Constitution," Perdue said, as reported by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Once the president announces a nomination, the United States Senate should begin the process that moves this to a full Senate vote.”

In 2016, Perdue supported Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s effort to block hearings to confirm President Barack Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court, Merrick Garland, saying then that the timing was too close to the next presidential election.

RIP to the more than 30 million innocent babies that have been murdered during the decades that Ruth Bader Ginsburg defended pro-abortion laws. With @realDonaldTrump nominating a replacement that values human life, generations of unborn children have a chance to live.
— Doug Collins (@CollinsforGA) September 19, 2020