While the discussion begins about John Roberts, and his decidedly sketchy history of arguing to overturn Roe v. Wade, conservatives seem to be latching on to the non-answers Roberts gave to the senate when he was first nominated to the United States Court of Appeals – DC District to the brief he co-authored and asserted this:<\/p>\n
We continue to believe that [Roe v. Wade] was wrongly decided and should be overruled. As more fully explained in our briefs, filed as amicus curiae, in Hodgson v. Minnesota, 110 S. Ct. 2926 (1990); Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 109 S. Ct. 3040 (1989); Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 476 U.S. 747 (1986); and City of Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, 462 U.S. 416 (1983), the Court’s conclusions in Roe that there is a fundamental right to an abortion and that government has no compelling interest in protecting prenatal human life throughout pregnancy find no support in the text, structure, or history of the Constitution.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
When asked for clarification by the Senate, his response was one of ambiguous non-transparency that could only be seen as a non-answer:<\/p>\n
“Roe v. Wade is the settled law of the land…There is nothing in my personal views that would prevent me from fully and faithfully applying that precedent.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The push now seems to be one where conservatives are chastising liberals for assuming his intentions would be to support the overturning of Roe v. Wade, because his early statements were made on behalf of the first Bush Administration as they framed their arguments for the Rust v. Sullivan case in 1991. While obviously there are a great many issues that need to be looked over thoroughly with regards to this new nominee to the SCOTUS, the definitive need for some transparency with regards to his regard for women’s reproductive rights needs to be addressed before he’s given a pass to the most powerful court system in the country, if not the world.<\/p>\n
I did a lot of digging around after the nomination was announced, and all I could find that would give indication towards what his personal beliefs would be, if we are to be charitable and disregard his earlier brief that detailed why Roe v. Wade should be overturned, and came up with a few issues that seemed of particular import with regards to his personal beliefs.<\/p>\n
– He’s considered a devout and faithful Catholic, which tends to imply he would agree with and support the Catholic stance of anti-choice on abortion.
\n– His wife, Jane Sullivan Roberts, was vice-president of Feminists For Life, the notoriously anti-choice appropriators of the term ‘Feminism’ that support the banning of legalized abortions.<\/p>\nSo what’s the bottom line here? Well, that still remains to be seen, and while as reports state John Roberts may well be a good person that is on some levels a friend to women, that he’s trustworthy to acknowledge the rights of women (and men) for reproductive autonomy and privacy in their family planning choices. So while it could have been worse, patience and transparency in the senatorial debates seem to be the only thing that will tell us by what margin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
While the discussion begins about John Roberts, and his decidedly sketchy history of arguing to overturn Roe v. Wade, conservatives seem to be latching on to the non-answers Roberts gave to the senate when he was first nominated to the United States Court of Appeals – DC District to the brief he co-authored and asserted this: Continue reading