For Immediate Release: October 19, 2017
Contact: [email protected]

Today, Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee chose to advance another one of Donald Trump’s anti-choice judicial nominees, William Ray II, to serve on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. A nominee for a lifetime appointment on the bench must put our constitutional rights including reproductive freedom ahead of their personal ideology. NARAL Georgia opposes William Ray II, whose anti-choice and odious record speaks for itself.

• As a state senator, Ray made clear that one of his priorities was to restrict access to abortion care.

• While serving in the senate, he voted in favor of a bill that criminalizes certain abortion services and carries up to a five-year prison sentence for abortion care providers.

• He used his leadership position in his local Republican Party to shepherd a resolution that blatantly discriminated against LGBT people, as it stood in strong opposition to “any plan, legislation, or resolution which may explicitly or implicitly condone homosexual behavior.”

• He also voted against increasing sentences for hate crimes, or crimes motivated by a victim’s “actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, ethnicity, gender, disability, or sexual orientation.”

For more information on NARAL’s stance on judicial nominations, please contact NARAL Georgia’s Laura Simmons, [email protected].