Dobson Assured Meirs Is Pro-Life?
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Abortion, Supreme CourtThis is an interesting tidbit I picked out of an AP article on Harriet Meirs.
It’s being reported that Focus on the Family founder James Dobson was assured by the White House that Meirs opposed abortions.
This has a couple of Senators concerned.
Specter and the committee’s top Democrat, Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, are considering having Focus on the Family founder James Dobson testify at Miers’ confirmation hearings. Dobson has said he is confident Miers opposes abortion, based on private assurances from the White House.Disputing that, Leahy said Miers assured him that she had not made any promises on how she would vote on Roe.
“If assurances were given of how any nominee â€â€? whether this nominee or anybody else â€â€? and somebody gives assurances how they’re going to vote in an upcoming case, I would vote against that person,” said Leahy, who appeared with Specter on ABC’s “This Week.”
Agreed.
However, it’s a bit ironic that so many Dems asked John Roberts how he would vote in upcoming cases, chided him for not answering them and then voted against him, citing his inability to answer how he may vote.
Of course Leahy voted for Roberts, so his logic still holds.
And let’s not forget that just because Meirs may be pro-life, does not mean she’ll vote to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Defending Miers, Texas Supreme Court Judge Nathan Hecht said Miers was going to overcome the criticism and would not step aside. He said the former corporate lawyer was an abortion opponent, but said that does not mean she would vote to overturn Roe.“Legal issues and personal issues are just two different things. Judges do it all the time,” he told “Fox News Sunday.”
And somebody who can distinguish between the two may be a pretty good judge after all.
This entry was posted on Sunday, October 9th, 2005 and is filed under Abortion, Supreme Court. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
October 10th, 2005 at 1:51 pm
I’m not sure it’s all that ironic — if you want a candidate for the SC to be candid about how they’d rule on issues likely to come up, it’s not altogether inconsistent to smell a rat if a candidate tells the President’s buddies, but not you.
October 10th, 2005 at 2:48 pm
What is ironic is that although the republican party hollers when democrats try to establish a candidates view on Rowe before deciding on them and now that that position is in question all of a sudden it’s important to know what the candidates position is. I realize this is not a Republican issue alone, but it does tend to occur at its most grand realization under the Republican leadership.
October 10th, 2005 at 4:08 pm
Agreed Phillip, but that doesn’t mean she won’t tell them in the proceedings.
I don’t know, maybe ironic was the wrong word, but certainly interesting.
October 11th, 2005 at 11:30 pm
[...] Okay, caught up? I blogged about Meirs and Dobson a couple days ago. Didn’t read it? Shame on you. [...]