Posted on 02/04/2005 3:09:55 PM PST by MJY1288
I remember reading an article (noted below, #1) about some prolifers being okay with AG being AG. There is another article I've excerpted below, #2, re his judicial decision in Texas.
1. http://www.lifenews.com/nat949.html
Pro-Life Groups Comfortable With Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General
by Steven Ertelt LifeNews.com Editor
November 10, 2004
2. http://www.intellectualconservative.com/article4079.html
Gonzales Gets Grilled
by Bonnie Chernin Rogoff
10 January 2005
QUOTE:
The Attorney General does not decide the future of Roe v. Wade, and never decides other abortion issues such as parental consent laws for minors. Furthermore, by focusing on the Gonzales memos, it diverts public attention toward Iraq policy and away from the continuous vicious tactics Senate Democrats employ every time President Bush chooses qualified minority candidates.
As it turns out, Alberto Gonzales is not a “blank slate” on abortion; his views are well known. He supports Roe v. Wade and is opposed to parental consent laws. As a Texas Supreme Court Justice, he voted with the majority against parental consent. In his opinion on the ruling, Gonzales wrote: “While the ramifications of such a law may be personally troubling to me as a parent, it is my obligation as a judge to impartially apply the laws of this state without imposing my moral view on the decisions of the legislature.” ... We can assume, therefore, that Alberto Gonzales would apply the law of the land (Roe v. Wade) by ruling to keep abortion legal if he were to become a U.S. Supreme Court Justice.
In a 2001 interview, the Los Angeles Times asked Gonzales if he would allow his personal view on abortion to influence his choice of judges. He replied:
There are no litmus tests for judicial candidates. My own personal feelings about abortion don’t matter. The question is, what is the law…sometimes, interpreting a statute, you may have to uphold a statute that you may find personally offensive. But as a judge, that’s your job.
That is exactly the neutered type of response given by Senator John Ashcroft during his confirmation hearings as Attorney General. President Bush obviously meant it when he said he’d have no litmus test for judicial candidates. In Gonzales’ own words: "My judgment is that the court has had ample opportunity to look at this issue," he said. "So far as I am concerned," he stated, the right to abortion is "the law of the land, and I will enforce it." Senate Democrats need not worry about the Supreme Court. It’s pro-lifers who should be worried.
Pls see post 381 for info on AG.
This looks to me (when I look only at the statements in quotes, and not the conclusions drawn from them), as though he is pro-life, but chose not to change the law of the land as an 'activist judge,' but rather, to apply the law impartially.
Unfortunately, even though it was illegally imposed on us by the USSC, Roe v. Wade is considered to be the law of the land.
The support Gonzales showed the President in his pro-life positions (cited in your first link), indicates to me that even if he were personally pro-choice (which I don't believe he is), that he would support the President's pro-life policies.
Aziza is quite an unusual name, unique to her so far as I know. It's a made-up name that her parents came up with out of the blue and thought it sounded pretty. Somehow it seems to me to fit her perfectly. The word 'aziz' means 'dear' or 'dear one' in Persian and possibly in Arabic too, I'm not sure.
In a 2001 interview, the Los Angeles Times asked Gonzales if he would allow his personal view on abortion to influence his choice of judges. He replied: There are no litmus tests for judicial candidates. My own personal feelings about abortion don’t matter. The question is, what is the law…sometimes, interpreting a statute, you may have to uphold a statute that you may find personally offensive. But as a judge, that’s your job.
I've worked for a lot of energetic top executives, been on the road with them, but none could compare with President Bush's energy. And empathy. Let us be thankful we have him and let us work to support him.
It will come up because in that case Alberto R. Gonzales, who then sat with Justice Owen on the Texas Supreme Court and now is White House counsel, wrote that to construe the statute narrowly "would be an unconscionable act of judicial activism." Gonzales joined the majority, while Owen was one of three dissenting justices.
Liberal interest groups opposed to her nomination have interpreted then Justice Gonzales' words as applying to Justice Owen. They charge President Bush with a violation of his own principles: He says he is opposed to activist judges, yet here--by the testimony of his own counsel!--he has nominated one.
Groups that swear allegiance to Roe vs. Wade--the 1973 case announcing a constitutional right to abortion, which is arguably the most activist decision in the history of the Supreme Court--should be taken with a very large grain of salt when they offer counsel on what is or is not judicial activism. As it happens, their anti-Owen reading of Justice Gonzales' words in In re Jane Doe is wrong.
Under the Parental Notification Act, a doctor may not perform an abortion on minor unless at least one of her parents is notified first. The statute provides, however, that parental notification isn't needed if the girl is "mature and sufficiently well informed"; if notification wouldn't be "in [her] best interest"; or if notification "may lead to [her] physical, sexual or emotional abuse." The law authorizes courts to grant a minor's application to bypass notifying her parents.
In In re Jane Doe, a pregnant minor was denied a bypass by the trial court and then by the appeals court. The Texas Supreme Court disagreed and granted the bypass.
The opinions in the case mostly concerned how judges should go about interpreting the notification act. In a concurring opinion, Justice Gonzales felt compelled to respond to "the dissenting justices" who "suggest that exceptions to the general rule of notification should be very rare and require a high standard of proof." Two of the three dissenting opinions suggested that, and one of the dissenters, Nathan Hecht, got under the majority's skin, accusing it of substituting its own policy views for those of the Texas Legislature--judicial activism, in sum.
Justice Gonzales defended the majority against Justice Hecht, contending that nothing in the language or history of the law shows "the Legislature intended such a narrow construction." Thus, he continued, "to construe [the act] so narrowly as to eliminate bypasses, or to create hurdles that simply are not to be found in the words of the state, would be an unconscionable act of judicial activism"--one that he said he couldn't engage in. By implication, the dissenting justices advancing the narrower interpretation stood accused of just that.
But Justice Owen didn't stand so accused for the simple reason that in her opinion she didn't undertake an inquiry into the law's intent. Her concern lay elsewhere--with the majority's treatment of the lower courts.
The majority, she wrote, "has usurped the role of the trial court, reweighed the evidence and drawn its own conclusion"--a practice at odds with "more than 50 years of precedent regarding appellate review of a trial court's factual findings." Under well-settled Texas law, she argued, the court may not disturb a trial judge's findings unless no reasonable person could have reached the same conclusion. And, she explained, a reasonable person could have.
"The question in this case is not," she wrote, "whether this court would have ruled differently when confronted with all the evidence that the trial court heard. The question is whether legally sufficient evidence supports the trial court's judgment. The answer to this latter question is yes."
Agree or not with Justice Owen's analysis, it is the product of a fine legal mind, not to mention of an appellate judge who respects the traditional authority of trial courts.
The point hardly is irrelevant to her present circumstance, since as a federal appellate judge she would be reviewing cases from trial courts. It is a point that merits notice Tuesday--especially by Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats whose only acquaintance with In re Jane Doe, so far, may be those several words from the Gonzales opinion.
Try Dog Gone and deport.
Although no documentation is really needed; it's on the face of it a case based on a law passed by the Texas Legislature on Parental Notification, and whether or not a specific girl was treated properly under the intent of that law if she were made to notify her parents. The law made exceptions for some situations, not forcing those in them to notify parents, and the question was did this girl's situation entitle her not to tell or parents, or did she have to. So the court had to interpret what was the legislative intent of the statute and the majority ruled that the intent was that this particular girl did fall under the exceptions and did not have to notify her parents.
Those who claim Gonzlalez voted "pro-choice" or "pro-death" are just bomb throwers, ohio. A text of the ruling would not change their minds at all. They are not using their minds, just wild, hateful rhetoric.
He is not pro-choice as far as anyone knows. Those who say he is are making it up.
Here you go.
To me it sounds like what Gonzales is saying is that it is the responsibility of the bench to rule on existing law, not to legislate from the bench based on personal opinions. That is exactly W's position. I suspect if W were asked about this, he would say that you can't have your judicial cake and eat it too. If one wants judges not to legislate, then they can't be expected to go ahead and legislate when that goes against the appointer's or other's beliefs, regardless of how deeply held those beliefs might be.
Here's the entire article, if you want to read the whole thing: Gonzales abortion ruling
"As a Texas Supreme Court justice, Gonzales' rulings implied he does not view abortion as a heinous crime," said Judie Brown, president of the American Life League, in a written statement.
---snip-----
Gonzales has worked with Bush since he was the governor of Texas -- serving as Bush's general counsel, then as Texas Secretary of State before Bush appointed him to the state's highest court. (Gonzales political fortunes tied to Bush's)
As a member of the court, Gonzales ruled with the majority that some teenage girls should not be required to get parental permission for an abortion.
In his opinion on the ruling, Gonzales wrote, "While the ramifications of such a law may be personally troubling to me as a parent, it is my obligation as a judge to impartially apply the laws of this state without imposing my moral view on the decisions of the legislature."
Brown said that "choosing not to rule against abortion, in any situation, is the epitome of denying justice for an entire segment of the American population -- pre-born babies in the womb."
She also cited a 2001 interview with the Los Angeles Times in which Gonzales was asked whether his personal view of abortion would play a role in his vetting of judges.
He responded, "There are no litmus tests for judicial candidates. ... My own personal feelings about (abortion) don't matter. ... The question is, what is the law, what is the precedent, what is binding in rendering your decision. Sometimes, interpreting a statute, you may have to uphold a statute that you may find personally offensive. But as a judge, that's your job." ----snip------
They probably don't care what I think, but I don't take them seriously on any unrelated topic either. They've proven that facts don't matter to them.
That is why the text of the written decision, or concurring opinion by Gonzalez, would not only not change their minds, it would actually inflame them.
Although his words are neutral on Pro-Life issues, or even Parental Notification issues, the bomb-throwers would rob them of their context and make them heavy with false meaning. They would say he personally wanted the girl to not notify her parents and to have the legal abortion, and that his opinion was exactly what the pro-choicers wanted to hear.
Never mind that he and the majority were trying their best to discern legislative intent. Even Priscilla Owen centered her dissent around legal reasoning that had nothing to do with pro-life as I understand it, but she wanted more weight given to the findings of the lower courts, whose decisions they were overruling.
But they have her as a life hero and him as a death villain. Just plain nuts.
Nearly all of us here are pro-life and think Roe v. Wade is bad law.
Where we fall apart as a cause is the apparently irresistable impulse to tear each other up if we differ on any aspect of the pro-life stance.
Heck, respecting current law is considered bad.
But they have her as a life hero and him as a death villain. Just plain nuts.
It is completely consistent with the character of the President, and his view that the laws and the Constitution should be strictly interpreted, that he appointed Gonzales, who clearly shares the same views.
(As to the pro-life crazies around here........ I just assume they are all leftist trouble makers using conservative stereotypes to roil the pot. There may be a few that are right wing nutcases, but probably the minority).
I do not understand why anyone would WANT to be dependent on the gov't. I understand taking advantage of programs when you have hard times--it happens! But to WANT to be dependent . . .
What's psychogirl's major going to be, and where is she going to college? What a mom you are!
Most of the time many of us just take the word of others without really looking at the facts when they are available to us. This Attorney General Gonzales pro choice thing can be traced back in many if not nearly all cases to Judie Brown and her group.
Can you imagine what Judie Brown would want for a Justice based upon her comment about AG Gonzales as cited below.... The law be damned and rule as I want you to.... sheesh.
Brown said that "choosing not to rule against abortion, in any situation, is the epitome of denying justice for an entire segment of the American population -- pre-born babies in the womb."
To hell with what the law says or what the Legislature, the peoples representatives, enacted just rule my way.... so sayeth Judie Brown, imo.
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