The headline in today's New York Times:
Abortion rights backers uneasy on Sotomayor
And they came to that conclusion because NARAL sent out an email saying:
“Discussion about Roe v. Wade will — and must — be part of this nomination process,” Ms. Keenan wrote. “As you know, choice hangs in the balance on the Supreme Court as the last two major choice-related cases were decided by a 5-to-4 margin.”
Yes, because NARAL wanting to ensure that hearing Justice Sotomayor's views on privacy as part of the nomination process rather than just assuming that she must be pro-choice simply because she was nominated by a pro-choice must OBVIOUSLY mean that NARAL believes that she's a stealth abortion-clinic protester who parades around with pictures of bloody fetuses. They are just so "uneasy" about her, because otherwise they wouldn't insist on even bringing the subject up in the first place!
So, just for kicks, let's take a look at the cases Sotomayor has ruled on that might be making pro-choice advocates "uneasy":
In a 2002 case, she wrote an opinion upholding the Bush administration policy of withholding aid from international groups that provide or promote abortion services overseas.
“The Supreme Court has made clear that the government is free to favor the anti-abortion position over the pro-choice position,” she wrote, “and can do so with public funds.”
Please note that the next sentence is not "And that is the correct decision." If that's how the Supreme Court ruled, then as a justice on the Court of Appeals, she was bound to uphold the mandatory precedent, whether she agrees or not.
In a 2004 case, she largely sided with some anti-abortion protesters who wanted to sue some police officers for allegedly violating their constitutional rights by using excessive force to break up demonstrations at an abortion clinic. Judge Sotomayor said the protesters deserved a day in court.
First, READ THE DAMN CASE!! Nowhere does Sotomayor say that she doesn't believe the protesters violated the law or that the police were acting excessively. The Court only concludes that there is a genuine issue of fact regarding the brutality and for that, the plaintiffs deserved to have it heard in the District Court. There's nothing at all controversial about a holding like that.
Just as a broader point, I absolutely believe that anti-abortion protesters do not have the right to block clinics or block patients' access to them. Certainly, if the protesters were breaking the law (and it appears they were so here), they should be punished accordingly. It's undisputed in this case that some force on the part of the police was necessary to bring them out. HOWEVER, it is critical to the First Amendment that nonviolent protesters be protected from excessive police force. That applies to any protest, whether anti-abortion or anti-war.
In a 2007 case, she strongly criticized colleagues on the court who said that only women, and not their husbands, could seek asylum based on China’s abortion policy. “The termination of a wanted pregnancy under a coercive population control program can only be devastating to any couple, akin, no doubt, to the killing of a child,” she wrote, also taking note of “the unique biological nature of pregnancy and special reverence every civilization has accorded to child-rearing and parenthood in marriage.”
And in a 2008 case, she wrote an opinion vacating a deportation order for a woman who had worked in an abortion clinic in China. Although Judge Sotomayor’s decision turned on a technicality, her opinion described in detail the woman’s account of how she would be persecuted in China because she had once permitted the escape of a
woman who was seven months pregnant and scheduled for a forced abortion. In China, to allow such an escape was a crime, the woman said.
I'm sorry, just how is this controversial? Does anyone support forced abortions or believe that it's not a reason to grant asylum to immigrants (note that I'm not asking you, Lou Dobbs)? BUELLER?
Is it really so hard to read the cases before coming to the conclusion that because Sotomayor held "x", she must obviously believe "y"?
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