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'm getting your Constitution mixed up with the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights.
Perhaps you could amalgamate the three for the benefit of confused Australians?
Roe and Dred Scott are but two instances where the principles laid out in the DOI and affirmed in the 5th and 14th Amendments were violated. They are blatant examples of a majority stepping on the inalienable rights of a defenseless minority.
So what should one do when deciding between the principles of the right to life and liberty vs strict contructionalism? It is evident to me that certain principles should indeed be inalienable and not subject to the whim of court majorities or plebiscites.
Given a choice, I would vote for the man or woman who espoused the principles set forth in the DOI, 5th Amendment and 14th Amendment rather than the man or woman who pledged to rule based only on strict construction when ruling on a basis of strict construction would violate the founding principles of this nation.
And now a question for you my friend. Would you vote to affirm a man or woman who pledged to strictly follow the constitution and affirm a black man to be less than a person or a man or woman of principle who understood that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."?
Well done! And THAT is precisely why the DOI is the starting point that leads to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights which was added. Would that someone had asked that question of the court considering the Dred Scott case!
Thanks MG.
Thank you, squire. Much appreciated.
It's an interesting question. I'd say at the moment, I'm leaning towards the former. I've actually been poking around looking for a good explanation for where old Chief Justice Taney was wrong. Didn't the Constitution say to count a black as 3/5s a person? Weren't they singled out in the Constitution as property? Didn't it take a Constitutional amendment to change that?
I want a justice to read the Constitution as is, without coming up with novel ways to advance the "spirit" of the document. Let the people amend it to be perfectly clear.
No, it counted a slave as 3/5 of a person. That's where Taney went wrong.
The 3/5ths compromise applied to slaves, not blacks. The slave holding states wanted slaves to count as full persons for the sake of representation, although they had otherwise the status of chattel.
Isn't it strange that a woman's right to vote required amendment, but her right to abortion was discovered to exist already?
"If p then q" doesn't mean "if q then p".
Dred Scott was a negro slave owned by someone.
That was the very point in dispute - whether or not he was still a slave.
There were a number of holdings in the Scott ruling, but one of them was that blacks (even free blacks) can't be citizens. There is (and was) no constitutional warrant for such a conclusion.
No sweat mate.
Well that explains that. Thanks.
BTTT!!!!!!
Thanks for the ping!
Six percent of southern blacks, some 250,000, were free in 1860; there were other free blacks in the North. Some impoverished free blacks actually sold themselves into slavery to garner a better life style.
The Constitution does not use the word "slavery" until Amendment 13. In the original body euphemisms are used to refer to "slavery" or "slaves," such as "one bound to service or labor."
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.