Posted on 11/25/2004 10:01:13 AM PST by nickcarraway
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- With the potential to nominate as many as three or four Supreme Court justices, there is little doubt that one legacy President Bush will have is how he shaped the views of the nation's top judicial panel.
When Bush begins nominating new justices to replace the aging members of the court, one of the key battles will revolve around abortion.
A recentCBS-New York Times poll found that 64 percent of those polled said they thought Bush would appoint pro-life judges who favor making abortion illegal.
They may be right.
A survey of the most often discussed possibilities for Supreme Court appointments indicates many are either pro-life or have issued decisions on legislation favorable to the pro-life community.
Samuel A. Alito, Jr.
As a judge on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge Alito upheld a Pennsylvania pro-life law that the Supreme Court overturned in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. He wrote an opinion in that case arguing for a standard that would permit virtually any restriction on abortion. From New Jersey, Alito is known in legal circles as "Scalia lite" in reference to pro-life Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
Janice Rogers Brown
Judge Janice Rogers Brown is the first black woman to serve on California's Supreme Court. Her nomination to a federal appeals court has been blocked by Senate Democrats.
In 1997, she issued a well-researched dissent in a case where the California Supreme Court overturned a pro-life law requiring abortion facilities to obtain parental consent before performing an abortion on a teenage girl.
Brown accused the court's plurality of abrogating the constitutional rights of parents, described the court's thinking as circular, and called the case "an excellent example of the folly of courts in the role of philosopher kings."
"When fundamentally moral and philosophical issues are involved and the questions are fairly debatable," Brown wrote, "the judgment call belongs to the Legislature. They represent the will of the people."
he also dissented in a decision requiring Catholic Charities to pay for contraception coverage in employee health insurance plans. The decision concerns pro-life groups because it could lead to a requirement that abortion be covered as well.
Brown has also garnered the support of the California voters. In 1998, 76% of voters decided to keep Brown on the bench in their state, the highest percentage of supporting votes in that election.
Emilio Garza
Emilio Garza is a federal appeals court judge on the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. Judge Garza's opposition to abortion is beyond question. He wrote two separate opinions explicitly criticizing Roe v. Wade and suggesting it be overturned.
Edith Jones
Judge Edith Jones of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals is frequently mentioned as a contender for the high court. She was considered for the Supreme Court seat that eventually went to Clarence Thomas.
If pro-life advocates are looking for a justice who strongly opposes Roe v. Wade, Jones should be a favorite.
When the 5th Circuit denied a request in October by Norma McCorvey to approve her motion to overturn the Roe v. Wade ruling, Judge Jones issued an opinion blasting the Supreme Court's opinion in Roe and saying it needs to be re-examined.
She called Roe an "exercise of raw judicial power," and cited evidence McCorvey presented showing abortions hurt women.
Jones, a Reagan nominee, wrote that the "[Supreme] Court's rulings have rendered basic abortion policy beyond the power of our legislative bodies."
"The perverse result of the Court's having determined through constitutional adjudication this fundamental social policy, which affects over a million women and unborn babies each year, is that the facts no longer matter," Jones added.
Jones chided the nation's high court for being "so committed to 'life' that it struggles with the particular facts of dozens of death penalty cases each year," but failing to grasp the fact that abortions destroys the lives of unborn children.
"One may fervently hope that the court will someday acknowledge such developments and re-evaluate Roe and Casey accordingly," Jones said of the 5000 pages of evidence with affidavits from over 1000 woman who have been harmed by abortion.
Michael Luttig
Judge Michael Luttig is a member of the Richmond-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Luttig was a clerk for pro-life Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia when Scalia was an appeals-court judge.
Later, Luttig worked for the first Bush administration and helped the former president win the appointment of Clarence Thomas to the nation's high court.
Luttig is widely considered one of Bush's top judicial prospects, especially given his young age, 50, and his ability to shape the direction of the court for years to come. He is considered the most conservative judge on one of the most conservative appeals courts in the nation.
He is regarded as a threat by abortion advocacy groups because he opposes abortion.
In 1998, Luttig issued an emergency stay of a lower-court order that blocked a new Virginia law banning partial-birth abortions. Eventually, Luttig and the 4th Circuit allowed the pro-life law to remain in place, but were overruled by the U.S. Supreme Court and the state's law was struck down.
However, should Luttig be selected for the Supreme Court, he would side with the four judges who comprised the minority in a 2000 case striking a Nebraska partial-birth abortion ban. The legal battle over the federal ban on partial-birth abortions is headed to federal appeals courts and will likely reach the Supreme Court.
John Roberts
Judge John Roberts, a former clerk of pro-life Chief Justice William Rehnquist, recently won confirmation to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, a traditional steppingstone to the Supreme Court. He is a former legal counsel to President Reagan.
As Principal Deputy Solicitor General during the first Bush administration, Roberts played an active role in efforts to limit abortion. Roberts argued in a brief before the U.S. Supreme Court that “[w]e continue to believe that Roe was wrongly decided and should be overruled. [T]he Court's conclusion in Roe that there is a fundamental right to an abortion ... finds no support in the text, structure, or history of the Constitution."
In Rust v. Sullivan, the Supreme Court considered whether the Department of Health and Human Services could counsel women to have abortions. Roberts said regulations prohibiting that were constitutional.
Larry Thompson
Larry Thompson was deputy attorney general and the Bush administration's highest-ranking black law-enforcement official until he quit in 2003 to join a think tank, the Brookings Institution. A longtime friend of Justice Clarence Thomas, Thompson now serves as the general counsel for PepsiCo.
Harvie Wilkinson
Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, also a member of the Richmond, Virginia-based federal appeals court, is considered a top prospect for the first Supreme Court seat that opens up.
Wilkinson opposes abortion and is considered someone who may be palatable to Democrats in the Senate because of his more moderate views on other political issues, such as environmental policy.
He voted to uphold a state law allowing parents to know when their teenage daughters were considering an abortion.
I think he does. He says he does.
Well, we need to begin to confront everyone with the basic truth that the right to life of the innocent is as basic as human rights get. It is is the supreme right, in fact.
There is a reason that the first right listed in both the Declaration and in the Bill of Rights is the right to life; listed even before the right to liberty and private property.
I think people have been making that case for some time. In the end, there will either be a constitutional amendment on abortion, or the states will decide, or Roe will stand.
Or the Court could just regain their ability to read, to think and to have some feelings for babies.
The only mention of a right to life I find in the Bill of Rights is a stipulation that the taking of life be accompanied by due process of law. So the right to life must not be absolute.
I don't care if judges have feelings for babies.
It never was absolute.
Those who are guilty of capital crimes' lives have always been forfeit after a fair trial.
But the right to life of the innocent is absolute.
That's the key difference between a liberal and a conservative:
The liberal wants to protect the life of the guilty and allow the killing of the innocent.
A conservative wants justice for the guilty, and justice for the innocent.
That's sick.
Our friend EV makes a very valid point regarding Amendment V. It says "No person". Therefore the question is 'what is a person?'. Personally, I think that a fetus is indeed a 'person' encompassed by Amendment V and is obviously entitled to all the protections regarding 'life, liberty, and property.'
However, I doubt that this SCOTUS, or any SCOTUS likely to be sitting in my lifetime will make such a sweeping ruling. What I do think is an attainable goal is for the next SCOTUS to rule that Roe was and is a hideous ruling and overturning it.
Then, the abortion question would return to the status quo ante. Simply put, the 'several states' would be able to regulate it as they see fit. To my mind, this would be a huge improvement over what we have today.
Some states would, quite rightly to my mind, ban the procedure entirely. Other states would allow it with some restrictions, and one or two would allow it almost without any restrictions.
Now, at the risk of starting a fight which I can't finish this eventing, I say that that would be a huge step forward. To get SCOTUS to at least admit that a mistake was made of the magnitude of Dred Scott would be the judicial event of a lifetime.
I for one could die satisfied knowing that such a step in the right direction was taken.
It may take a generation, or even two for the SCOTUS to finally rule that a fetus is indeed a 'person' and as such cannot be deprived of 'life' without judicial process. But, I'll be happy to see the small step in the right direction taken.
If SCOTUS rules that Roe was a mistake, and returns the matter to the several states, that will still save millions of lives. And that my friend, would be a very good thing.
A journey of a thousand miles, starts with a single step after all.
Now, to close my rather long winded reply I wish you and yours a most joyful Thanksgiving.
Warm regards,
L
I think that would be a stretch. That amendment, it seems to me, is addressing a specific point, not a sweeping one. It deals with capital punishment, and merely lays down some basic civil rights before execution. To use that clause, through a court decision, to make abortion unconstitutional would, to me, be a perversion of the process. Not that our political enemies (and even some of our friends) don't do it all the time, but that doesn't change the fact.
I think the cleanest, simplest, best way to assert a constitutional ban on abortion is by amendment. When slavery was outlawed, they didn't assert that slavery was always unconstitutional, they amended the document. Think about that. When women got the right to vote, they didn't assert that the right was already in the constitution; they amended it. If slavery was constitutional. If denying suffrage to women was constitutional. Then what is abortion?
Seems to me, an amendment would answer it once and for all. Amendment is the instrument of change created by the Constitution itself. An amendment that passes has the will of the people, the states, and the framers on its side. It carries the full weight and force of our system of government. It has, in fact, the same weight as any other part of the Constitution.
The people might not want that, though. So what is the next best thing, looked at not with the goal of ending abortion, but with the goal of preserving and promoting good government? It seems to me, it is to defer to the states and to the people to answer the question in their own way and time.
And I hope your Thanksgiving was full of family, friends, good cheer and good food! It's 3:33 and I'm still up!
That's getting even sicker.
However, I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon. By soon I mean in this century. I just don't see it happening.
To get the citizens of 38 States to vote to outlaw abortion in its entirety just ain't gonna happen. Personally, I don't think it would be possible even if Jesus Christ himself appeared on national television and endorsed it.
As I said before, what we need to focus on is a reasonably attainable goal. For what it's worth, my idea of that goal is to get Roe overturned, and return to the status quo ante.
That would indeed be 'Federalism' as (I believe) our Founders intended. Let the States decide it and hope to God Almighty that the scales would fall from our fellow citizens eyes and realize that killing unborn children is just plain wrong under any circumstances.
Maybe I'm just some kind of stupid, silly dreamer. That is possible.
But, I just spent the day of Thanksgiving watching my 9 year old son play with his twin 6 year old cousins. They built Leggo toys, played with Lincoln Logs, and ran around my in laws backyard with popguns and balloons. After seeing that, I don't think there is anyone in the world who could argue that this Earth would be a better place of any one of those three hadn't been born.
I don't mean to get all sappy hear Huck, but the ultimate goal is to end this hideous practice of killing children before they even get to draw their first breath. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I do think we can all agree on that much at least.
I watched my son teach his younger cousins how to jump into a leaf pile today. Me, my son, and his grandfather spent hours building that pile yesterday. Papa Jim and I got to watch them as they jumped off the stump into the pile we built yesterday. The sound of their young voices screaming to the cedar trees as they flew into that leaf pile was nothing short of magical to me.
How anyone could 'choose' not to be a part of something like that is simply beyond my ken.
I know I'm digressing a bit, but cut me some slack.
Let's focus on what we can accomplish in the short term. Let's put some more 'strict constructionists' on the bench. One or maybe two more is all it's going to take.
If we can do that, we can make some huge strides towards ending the mass infanticide that's going on in our nation today. That's not to mention the possibility of reversing some of the other horrible decisions SCOTUS has made regarding private property rights, the 2nd Amendment, the 5th Amendment, as well as those bastard children of the Bill of Rights, the 9th and 10th Amendments.
Maybe it's that last glass of port I had tonite. Maybe it's the tryptophan in the turkey kicking it. Who knows what it is, but I know that we are all going to have to pull together in order to get SCOTUS to take that first small step in the right direction so that we can all have the God given rights enumerated in our Constitution restored to each and every one of us.
Even the most defenseless among us; unborn children.
And on that note I will bid you a both a good night.
Let's try to remember that we're all on the same side.
Warm regards to both,
L
I agree on what the next step is, but not just because it's the most feasible, but also cuz it's the right step. In my opinion, if America is unwilling to amend the constitution to ban abortion, then our federal gubmint has no business outlawing it. Likewise, if the people aren't willing to codify a right to abortion, the fed gov has no business asserting it. So, yes, we are in agreement. The reason I brought it up on this thread is because for me, there is no substitute for strict construction. I don;t want an authoritarian who happens to agree with me on an issue or two. I want someone intent on limiting federal scope and limiting judicial invention. That is primary for me. GWB says he'll pick Scalias, but in his semi-coherent babblings, he's also left me unsure if he knows what that means. So I am jealously looking after it.
"To get the citizens of 38 States to vote to outlaw abortion in its entirety just ain't gonna happen." That is not the goal, for that would remove from women one of their fundamental rights, that of self defense, the right to terminate a pregnancy that threatens her life. A constitutional amendment that recognizes the unborn from conception onward as persons is the ideal, for then the same rights of the woman could be applied to the other alive human being in the issue. Such recognition would also go a long way to stopping the evil of clone-and-kill and exploitation of embryo aged beings for their body parts.
Yeah, the elephant in the living room, as I see it, is the part about when so-called moderates get on the court they seem to invariably turn liberal. Heck, that's how Roe got passed in the first place -- nobody would have thought Nixon's appointments would have done that. So how do we get judges that won't give in to the urge to tinker play God and tinker?
I, for one, would like a "litmus test" in which the prospective jurist agrees with the proposition that the constitution and the republic have been seriously damaged and weakened by a judiciary that has arrogated to itself the right to find "penumbras and emanations", to consider foreign and international case law, and to interpret law into existence based on so called "social good."
There are more of us than you might think.
And in general, conservatives are smart, logical people. Once you peel off a few layers of misinformation, most of the conservative thinkers that I've come into contact with inherently "get it."
The nanny state didn't arrive all at once and it won't be dismantled all at once. It's going to take time, effort and a lot of disappointment over the inevitable setbacks.
As someone who grew to manhood under Ronald Reagan's vision and leadership, I'm convinced that our best days are still ahead of us. But like all things worth having, those days won't just be given to us. We need to work for them.
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