Scared yet Re: Roberts

[LeftNYC]

Got this from Salon.com

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html?blog=



Abortion cases loom on Supreme Court docket

If anyone is thinking that John Roberts' views about abortion rights are somehow a theoretical concern, it's time to think again. The Supreme Court has just released its schedule of cases for the first part of the next term. On Nov. 30, the court will take up one case involving abortion rights and two more involving the legal protections abortion providers can obtain from pro-life activists who try to shut them down.

In the first of the cases, Ayotte vs. Planned Parenthood of N. New England, the Supreme Court will consider the constitutionality of a New Hampshire law that prohibits a minor from obtaining an abortion unless her parents are notified first. Many states have such laws, but New Hampshire's is different: It doesn't include an exception to the parental-notification requirement for cases in which the minor's health is at risk. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit invalidated the law, saying that it violated the "undue burden" test Sandra Day O'Connor established when she provided the fifth vote for upholding Roe vs. Wade in Planned Parenthood vs. Casey. While O'Connor replacement's won't be able to overrule Roe out of the box -- Ruth Bader Ginsberg joined the court after Casey was decided, ensuring a 5-4 majority to uphold Roe even with O'Connor gone -- Ayotte would give Roberts and his colleagues on the right a chance to begin rolling back Roe's protections.

The other cases scheduled for Nov. 30 are Scheidler vs. NOW and Operation Rescue vs. NOW, two cases that concern the circumstances -- if any -- under which abortion providers can obtain injunctions prohibiting anti-abortion activists from interfering with their work through acts of violence and intimidation. Variations of this dispute have been before the court twice before -- once in 1994, then again in 2003 -- and NOW has won one and lost one.

With the questions getting narrower each time the case comes up, the justices may well be more closely divided than they were in 2004, when they ruled against NOW's position by an 8-1 vote. Roberts' vote could be crucial -- that is, if he doesn't feel the need to recuse himself from the cases altogether: In 1993, while he was working as a deputy solicitor general in the first Bush administration, Roberts wrote a brief taking Operation Rescue's side in a dispute with abortion providers.

[AndyTiedye]

1. Worse and Worse

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
:puke:

[Son of California]

2. BUSH SHOULD LOOK AT THE POLLS

inevitably, the fight of over this nominee will be a fight over abortion.
60 something % of the country wants to keep it legal, if you look at the polls, Roberts was a really stupid choice politically speaking.

[emulatorloo]

3. An op-ed here w more on Roberts and OPERATION RESCUE, etc

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/07/20/opinion/printable710363.shtml

<snip>

How mainstream, though, is Roberts' apparent support for the militant anti-abortion group, Operation Rescue? In 1993, a case was brought to the High Court by a group of abortion providers who accused Operation Rescue and six of its activists of violating a federal civil-rights statute by obstructing patients' access to women's health clinics.

In the case of Operation Rescue, the word "obstruction" was no metaphor; the health clinics referred to hard, physical reality. The group's activists, sometimes by the dozens, literally blocked, with their bodies, the entrances to women's health facilities. So menacing were Operation Rescue's tactics that other anti-abortion groups often kept their distance. (In fact, an Operation Rescue rally I attended in San Diego during the 1996 Republican National Convention was deemed enough of threat to bring out a small army of federal marshals.)

The kicker to Roberts' role on behalf of Operation Rescue (Bray v. Alexandria Women's Health Clinic) was that although the case did not involve the government, Roberts, deputy to then-Solicitor General Kenneth Starr, felt compelled to co-author an amicus curiae brief in support of an organization bent on terrorizing and demonizing pregnant women.

<snip>