[Mb-civic] Roberts Avoids Specifics on Abortion Issue - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

Roberts Avoids Specifics on Abortion Issue
Nominee Distances Himself From Reagan-Era Writings

By Amy Goldstein and Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, September 14, 2005; Page A01

John G. Roberts Jr. testified yesterday that he believes that the 
Constitution protects the right to privacy, the legal underpinning of 
the nation's landmark abortion law, but he refused to say whether he 
would vote to uphold Roe v. Wade if he is confirmed as chief justice of 
the United States.

In a day of sometimes testy exchanges with senators, Roberts distanced 
himself repeatedly from his conservative writings as a young legal 
adviser to President Ronald Reagan, including a memo in which he had 
disparaged privacy as "amorphous" and a "so-called right" not spelled 
out in the Constitution.

Democrats pressed him aggressively, seeking to elicit his views on 
abortion and a range of other volatile civil rights issues by reminding 
him of stances he had advocated in the past. But time and again 
throughout the first full day of questioning at his Senate confirmation 
hearing, Roberts refused to divulge the way he would rule on matters of 
voting rights, gender equity, fair housing and the role of religion in 
public life.

He deflected some questions by asserting it would be improper to 
foreshadow his views on cases that might come before the Supreme Court. 
At other times, he shielded his personal views by saying his early 
writings simply mirrored the policies of two Republican presidents for 
whom he worked.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/13/AR2005091300682.html?referrer=email
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.islandlists.com/pipermail/mb-civic/attachments/20050914/7ae526ec/attachment.htm