NARAL PRO-CHOICE MISSOURI: JUDGE JOHN ROBERTS IS A DIVISIVE PICK FOR SUPREME COURT
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE July 20, 2005
NARAL PRO-CHOICE MISSOURI: JUDGE JOHN ROBERTS IS A DIVISIVE PICK FOR SUPREME COURT
(St. Louis, MO) – NARAL Pro-Choice MO, the state's largest grassroots organization dedicated solely to reproductive rights, has called on Senators Bond and Talent to ensure that nominee John Roberts provides forthright answers on his judicial philosophy and his stand on a woman’s right to choose.
Roberts’ nomination comes at a time when the Missouri legislature, in a special session called by Governor Blunt, may soon be considering legislation designed to thwart access to safe and legal abortions. NARAL Pro-Choice Missouri Executive Director Pamela Sumners said, “Missouri is constitutional ground zero. We are the prototype for far-right extremists’ campaign to add state legislatures to their conquest of the federal executive, legislative, and judicial branches. If they succeed here, they’ll move on to other states.”
“By nominating John Roberts, a man who has said that Roe should be overruled, President Bush has broken his promise to be ‘a uniter not a divider.’ Roberts’ position is in direct opposition to the vast majority of Americans, 65% of whom want Roe upheld,” stated Sumners. “We can be sure that if, with Roberts on the Court, Roe is overturned, the regulation of abortion will go to the states—and this could be devastating to women in Missouri.”
A look at Judge John Roberts’s background reveals a record of opposition to reproductive rights and personal freedom:
• As Deputy Solicitor General, Roberts argued in a brief before the U.S. Supreme Court (in a case that did not implicate Roe v. Wade) 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.”
Roberts also took anti-choice positions in two other Supreme Court cases. “I take him on his word that he believes Roe should be overturned,” said Sumners. “The alarm bells should be going off, especially in Missouri, where we may find our constitutional rights have been turned over to a hostile governor and legislature by a Supreme Court on which Roberts is the deciding vote.”
NARAL Pro-Choice Missouri is prepared to lead the efforts locally to demand that the Senate fulfill its responsibility to ask tough questions of Roberts and expect serious answers about constitutional issues.
Contact: Pamela Sumners, Executive Director 314-531-8616 or 312-213-1725
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