NYT: Anti-Abortion Advocacy of Wife of Court Nominee Draws Interest

[Hissyspit]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/23/politics/politicsspecial1/23jane.html?hp&ex=1122091200&en=2b980dccd70273f5&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Anti-Abortion Advocacy of Wife of Court Nominee Draws Interest
By LYNETTE CLEMETSON and ROBIN TONER

WASHINGTON, July 22 - Judge John G. Roberts has left little hard evidence of his views on abortion in recent years and is widely expected to try to avoid the issue in his coming confirmation hearings.

But there is little mystery about the views of his wife, Jane Sullivan Roberts, an Irish Catholic lawyer from the Bronx whose pro bono work for Feminists for Life is drawing intense interest in the ideologically charged environment of a Supreme Court confirmation debate.

Some abortion opponents view her activities as a clear signal that the Robertses are committed to their cause; supporters of abortion rights fear the same thing. Others say that drawing a direct line from her activities to how her husband might rule on the Supreme Court - assuming that he not only shares her views, but would also act on them to overturn 32 years of legal precedents - is both politically risky and in bad form.

- snip -

Mrs. Roberts was not recruited by Feminists for Life, but sought the group out about a decade ago and offered her services as a lawyer, said its president, Serrin Foster. The group was reorganizing at the time and beginning to focus its work on college campuses. Its mission statement, driven home in advertising in recent years, says: "Abortion is a reflection that our society has failed to meet the needs of women. Women deserve better than abortion."

MORE

[Fridays Child]

1. In bad form??? Oh, we wouldn't want to be in bad form, now, would we?

It's only the lives of our daughters and granddaughters we're talking about here.

:mad:

[kestrel91316]

2. Either Roberts is sleeping with the enemy, or ...............

he IS the enemy. Either way, he is not morally fit for the job.

[kestrel91316]

3. Oh, wait now ..............

he MAY NOT be sleeping with her. The two kids are adopted, right???

[Fridays Child]

4. You mean Jane Roberts' little Caroline and John-John wannabes?

[Voltaire99]

5. You aren't seriously suggesting...

...that Kennedy's kids are better than their kids, are you?

Isn't that taking Camelot nostalgia a wee bit far?

[Fridays Child]

6. Where'd you get that idea?

I'm suggesting that way Jane Roberts' children were dressed, the other day, is very reminiscent of how Jackie Kennedy dressed her children, in the early sixties. Even her daughter's hair cut is like young Caroline's.

[Voltaire99]

8. From "wannabees"

I misinterpreted you--my mistake.

Yes, you're right, they do look much alike.

[Fridays Child]

9. Ah...

:)

[kestrel91316]

7. Kennedy's kids are not better or worse, just DIFFERENT ............

Kennedy's kids were not both "adopted from Latin America".

How long and hard does one have to look in Latin America to find such perfect little blondes? And how many little brown children have to get told "Sorry, but you just WON'T DO. You aren't blonde enough."

I smell something here. Dare I call it racism????

[fasttense]

10. She is anti-choice because she can't have kids herself.

She had to adopt from Latin America because she couldn't have kids. She wants white woman in the US to not have abortions so she can have their kids. See that way others take the risks and pain of pregnancy and she and people like her get the kids.

I'm not against adoption, it's these anti-choice people who push adoption that sound so self-serving, so greedy for others to take on the dangers and pains of pregnancy all the time knowing they can never be pregnant or make a choice about abortion.

[Demeter]

12. That's What Happens If You Wait Until After 40

The whole damn society penalizes women who go for a career first, or children first (forget about doing both simultaneously).

[Justice]

13. Not entirely fair

She did not get married until 42, so her prospects of having children were dim. I don't think she is a person that wanted to avoid the risks/pains of pregancy. Not sure really how many of those people are out there.

I do agree that a bit of her thinking is that because there are always people wanting children - adoption is an alternative.

[HockeyMom]

14. I think you may be on to something there

Is there a correlation between couples who cannot have children and their anti abortion stance? I remember reading something a while ago from Tom Delay. He talked about, "Selfish married couples using birth control and not have enough children." What? My first reaction to that was who the hell is HE to tell anybody how many children they should have?

But I also read somewhere that Delay and his wife had problems having children. Might this be the reason some of these people are so anti choice? Because they themselves cannot have kids, so they want to force others to have them. As you said, the shortage of the "American" blue eyed, blonde perfect little babies up for adoption for these infertile couples to adopt. These people are claiming these babies are being aborted out of existence. However, I doubt that. From my personal experience, they are never being conceived in the first place. Again, go back to Delay's statement. 99% of the time birth control DOES work. Is this where the attack on birth control is coming from? Is there also a racial component to all this too?

When you really start to think about all this, it starts to sound more and more like the Third Reich. Scary.

[IndianaGreen]

11. If Joe Wilson's wife was "fair game," to quote Karl Rove

once could argue that Mrs. Roberts advocacy of a group that mirrors Opus Dei's concept of what women's roles ought to be, is a fair line of inquiry.