The Senate voted Tuesday to confirm Julie Rikelman to a lifetime federal judgeship, overcoming opposition from conservatives and anti-abortion groups angry about her long record of advocating for women’s reproductive rights.

Rikelman, 51, was confirmed 51 to 43 to a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, based in Boston.

Rikelman has been the litigation director for the Center for Reproductive Rights since 2011, and is well known for representing abortion providers in federal court challenges. Most recently, she argued for a Mississippi clinic in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the landmark 2022 Supreme Court case that led to Roe v. Wade being overturned.

President Joe Biden nominated Rikelman for a federal judgeship one month after the Supreme Court ruled in the Dobbs case.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who recommended Rikelman to the White House for a judgeship, hailed her confirmation Tuesday night.

“Fair-minded, experienced, thoughtful, and exceptionally talented – these are the qualities a federal judge should possess, and these are the qualities Julie Rikelman has exhibited throughout her career,” Warren said. “It is important to note, now more than ever, that we have judges on the federal bench who deeply understand reproductive rights law, and Ms. Rikelman’s experience in this area makes her an exceptionally qualified nominee.”

Hard-line anti-abortion groups like Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and Family Research Council had been trying to tank Rikelman’s nomination for months, as several GOP senators tried to cast her as an extremist.

During her confirmation hearing in September, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) called her support for “radical pro-abortion laws … very, very troubling.” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) accused her of being “an extreme zealot” advocating for abortion rights, and then bizarrely asked her if she knew who leaked the Supreme Court decision in the Dobbs case before it was official. (She said no.)

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) pressed Rikelman on whether she stood by her previous claim that the Supreme Court’s decision to gut Roe v. Wade may signal the beginning of “the biggest public health care crisis we have ever seen in decades.”

Rikelman didn’t shy away from her record amid the GOP attacks in her Senate hearing.

She stood by her years of advocacy for “women to be able to make their own personal medical decisions.” Rickelman told Lee that she made her previous comments on the Dobbs case in her role as an advocate, and that as a federal judge she would be bound by Supreme Court precedent. She vowed to “absolutely” follow all precedents from the high court, including in Dobbs.

Democrats and women’s rights groups have long celebrated Rikelman’s nomination. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the chair of the Judiciary Committee, has highlighted that Rikelman was unanimously rated “well qualified” to be a federal judge by the American Bar Association.

“Let’s be clear: Ms. Rikelman advocated a mainstream legal position in defending Roe v. Wade—which was a 50-year precedent decided 7-2 by the Supreme Court,” Durbin said after she cleared the committee late last year. “Challenging laws that have sought to prevent women from accessing reproductive health care—as Ms. Rikelman did in the Dobbs case—is also a mainstream legal position.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Tuesday that Rikelman has for years “had a hand in some of the most important legal fights over women’s rights and civil liberties.”

“She was the attorney who defended the Mississippi clinic in the Dobbs case that ultimately overturned Roe. Few lawyers have fought harder, smarter, and more effectively to protect women’s rights in America than Ms. Rikelman,” Schumer said. “On the bench I am confident she will serve with excellence to uphold the Constitution.”

Rikelman is the latest in a series of recent judicial confirmations who have long been priorities for progressives. Two of Biden’s other high-profile court picks, voting rights attorney Dale Ho and civil rights attorney Nusrat Choudhury, were confirmed last week.