Maine attorney demolishes Susan Collins: 'Uniquely responsible' for dismantling key right

President Donald Trump’s sometimes-ally in Congress, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), was just blasted in an op-ed from a major Maine newspaper for her role in overturning abortion rights.

“Mainers cannot and will not forget Sen. Susan Collins’ critical role in dismantling the nearly half-century-old constitutional right, causing cruelty and chaos to ensue,” wrote civil rights attorney Azaleea Carlea in the Portland Press Herald on Monday. “Either she was foolish or a hypocritical [sic]. Either way, she is not fit to serve another term in the U.S. Senate.”

Carlea detailed how Collins, despite promising to not vote in favor of confirming a Supreme Court Justice who would overturn Roe v. Wade, accepted Brett Kavanaugh’s word that he accepted the abortion rights ruling as “settled law.” After being confirmed, Kavanaugh joined four other judges to overturn Roe v. Wade in a 5-to-4 ruling. Three of those judges — Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett — were appointed by Trump.

“Either she fell for it, or she secretly wanted the end result, but either way Americans across the country suffered and continue to live with this catastrophic attack on reproductive justice,” Carlea explained. “When the Supreme Court overturned Roe, it opened the floodgates to abortion bans across the country. Currently, 63 million women live in states with bans. Sen. Collins was crucial to the process for ensuring that SCOTUS was in a position to overturn Roe and for the subsequent fact that now 20 states have banned or significantly restricted abortions.”

In addition to reversing the right to abortion, the 2022 decision Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization also made it easier for states to ignore the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) that told hospitals to provide emergency care to all who require and seek it.

“Because of Susan Collins, women in the United States have been left to ‘bleed out’ in parking lots,” Carlea wrote. “They have been airlifted out of state to get the care they urgently needed and they have been left to deteriorate to the point where their health, future fertility, organ function was in grave danger.”

Carlea added, “Collins has also placed even greater barriers in the way of survivors of domestic violence and other forms of gender-based violence in accessing this form of healthcare. With reproductive coercion on the rise, abortion bans and reproductive healthcare restrictions make it even harder for victims to exert agency over their own lives, their own bodies and leave abusive relationships.”

The attorney reviewed how abortion restrictions have exacerbated America’s maternal health crisis and widened racial disparities in pregnancy outcomes.

“All this because Sen. Collins cast a critical vote to appoint Kavanaugh to the court,” Carlea wrote. “Four years later, in the wake of the devastation, suffering, cruelty and confusion she helped set into motion, she doubled down and said she did not regret voting the way she did. On Monday, June 22, she went on national television, dodged accountability for her vote and lied about how many Supreme Court justices overturned Roe.”

Because of Collins’ decisive vote and refusal to accept accountability for it, Carlea concluded that “Mainers deserve a senator who will take accountability, and fight for what two-thirds of Mainers are asking for — the right to an abortion. Graham Platner will do just that and more, all with a spine to stand up to the Trump administration’s attacks on bodily autonomy and our healthcare system. It’s well past time for Susan Collins to go. Mainers deserve better.”

This is not the first criticism Collins has received in June 2026 for her seeming ability to cozy up to Trump without wanting to take full responsibility for doing so. Even though many Senate Republicans came out to oppose Trump’s Memorandum of Understanding, which proposed to end the Iran War on terms perceived as favorable to Iran, Collins claimed she had not even read the 14-point agreement. It had been available for nearly 24 hours at that point and Collins is a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. She has also been criticized for, like Trump, being too close to billionaires, with at least 79 billionaires donating to Collins’ network between January 2025 and May 20, 2026.

Despite these potential political liabilities, Collins could benefit from the presence of oysterman Graham Platner as her Democratic opponent in the general election. Platner has been accused of multiple infidelities toward his wife and exaggerating his working class background. He also had a Tottenkopf tattoo on his chest, which he claimed to not know was a Nazi symbol, although he has since gotten it covered up.

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