Abortion Debated in Roberts Supreme Court Nomination Hearing

Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA), the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, stated he will hold his decision regarding Roberts until the end of the confirmation hearings and suggested that questions about Roberts' personal views on issues are inappropriate:

I have expressed my personal view that it is not appropriate to ask a question about how the nominee would vote on a specific case. And I take that position because of the key importance of independence, that there ought not to be commitments or promises made by a nominee to secure confirmation.

Applying this principle, Specter stated,

I do not intend to ask you whether you will overrule Roe v. Wade. I will ask you whether you think the Constitution has a right of privacy. And I will ask questions about precedents, as they bear on Roe v. Wade.

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) appears to be sold on Roberts:

Well, times have changed. Today, some see the separation of powers not as a condition for liberty but as an obstacle to their own political agenda.

When they lose in the legislature, they want the judiciary to give them another bite at the political apple. Politicizing the judiciary leads to politicizing judicial selection.

The confirmation process has sometimes been -- it seems to me -- unbecoming of the Senate and disrespectful of nominees. I applaud President Bush for resisting this trend and for nominating qualified men and women who, as judges, will not legislate from the bench.

You're a perfect example of that.

Predictably, Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) has "concerns" that are already being inflated in preparation for the upcoming hearings:

Unfortunately, Mr. Chairman, there are real and serious reasons to be deeply concerned about Judge Roberts' records. Many of his past statements and writings raise questions about his commitment to equal opportunity and to the bipartisan remedies we've adopted in the past.

Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA), while giving an otherwise decent speech, underestimated the number of blogs following the Supreme Court hearings by several orders of magnitude:

... Judge Roberts, you are the first nominee of the Internet age, with millions of eyes scrutinizing thousands of downloaded pages of writing, not to mention the hundreds of Web site blogs characterizing the documents that have been produced in an accurate -- or, more likely, inaccurate -- way and opining on every record that you have been involved with, and doing it by the minute.

Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), one of my representatives, seemed overly generous in his statement,

Now, in spite of the fact that he is not from Arizona, Judge Roberts clearly is eminently qualified to serve as chief justice of the United States Supreme Court.

Sen. Mike Dewine (R-OH) agreed with Roberts’ constitutional view of judicial authority:

I must tell you, Judge, I, too, am concerned. Judges are not members of Congress. They are not elected. They are not members of state legislatures. They are not governors. They are not presidents. Their job is not to pass laws, implement regulations, nor to make policy

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) reiterated her ridiculous claim that she represents all women of the United States and asserted the act of killing the unborn is justified by a constitutional right to privacy:

For me -- and I said this to you privately, and I'll say more about it in my time on questions -- one of the most important issues that needs to be addressed by you is the constitutional right to privacy.

[snip]

It would be very difficult -- and I said this to you privately and I said it publicly -- for me to vote to confirm someone whom I knew would overturn Roe v. Wade, because I remember -- and many of the young women here don't -- what it was like when abortion was illegal in America.

Others remember a time before over 40,000,000 unborn babies were killed and a when the same were protected by the constitution of the United States rather than oppressed by judicial tyrants.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) responded to Feinstein, giving her a history lesson from past nomination hearings:

Roe v. Wade: It divides America. If you believe in polling, most Americans would like to see the decision stand, even though we're divided 50/50 on the idea of abortion on demand.

My good friend from California has expressed a view about Roe v. Wade which I completely understand and respect. I can just tell you, Judge Roberts, there are plenty of women in South Carolina who have an opposite view about abortion.

If we were to make our votes, base our votes on that one principle, Justice Ginsburg would not be Justice Ginsburg. In her writing, she embraced the idea of federal funding for abortion. She indicated that an abortion right was based on the equal protection clause of the Constitution.

I dare say that 90 percent of the Republican Caucus is pro-life. I dare say that 90 percent of the Democratic Caucus is pro-choice. Justice Ginsburg got 96 votes even though she expressed a view of the federal government's role in abortion that I completely disagree with and I think most conservatives disagree with.

And, Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) went a step further:

Perhaps the Supreme Court's most notorious exercise of raw political power came in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, two 1973 cases based on false statements which invented a Constitutional right to abortion. The issue had been handled by the people through their elected representatives prior to that time.

Since that time, nearly 40 million children have been aborted in America, 40 million lives that could be amongst us but are not, beautiful, innocent faces that could bless our existence and our families and our nation, creating and expanding a culture of life.

If you're confirmed, your court will decide if there is a constitutional right to partially deliver a late-term child and then destroy it.

Partial-birth abortion is making its way to the Supreme Court. The federal courts have thus far found laws limiting partial-birth abortion unconstitutional.

Now, it should be noted again, if Roe is overturned, it does not ban abortion in America. It merely returns the issue to the states so states like Kansas or California can set the standards they see right and just.