Democrats and the Supreme Court:
Supporting Future Attacks on Women’s Rights

Sep 12, 2005

The Senate Judiciary Committee’s confirmation hearings for John Roberts, Bush’s nominee to the Supreme Court, are about to begin. Democrats on the committee are doing their usual hemming and hawing, especially on Roberts’s stance on women’s abortion rights.

The Democrats claim to be the brave guardians of women’s abortion rights against the Republican onslaught. But these "guardians" have been remarkably quiet about the fact that as a high government official in the Reagan and Bush I administrations, Roberts consistently fought to oppose, deny and restrict women’s abortion rights. Instead, the Democrats have pretended that Roberts was just doing his job as a lawyer, that these cases did not represent his "personal views." Of course, if that were the case, that would make Roberts a complete chameleon and hypocrite.

It would be easy for the Democrats to oppose and block any Supreme Court nominee Bush sent them. First of all, with two vacancies now on the court, it would leave the justices who voted by 4-3 margins in favor of upholding abortion rights, that is, it would leave the court in the hands of those justices considered to be more "liberal." Even add O’Connor to the mix and the vote would usually be 5-3.

By actually taking a strong stand against the increasingly unpopular Bush, the Democrats could shore up their base, especially given the fact that every opinion poll shows a vast majority of the people consistently upholding a woman’s right to choose and opposing efforts by the government to stick its nose into peoples’ most private and personal affairs.

The fact that the Democrats don’t do this is only more proof that their stance of upholding women’s rights is a complete sham. Just as much as the Republicans, the Democrats are the enemies of women’s rights.