Patterico's Pontifications

10/18/2005

Miers Supported Abortion Ban — So What?

Filed under: Abortion,Dog Trainer,Judiciary — Patterico @ 7:37 pm



Here is that Texans United for Life Questionnaire in which Harriet Miers signaled her support for a constitutional amendment banning abortion unless necessary to protect the life of the mother. The document is provided by the Washington Post — an example of a newspaper making original sources available to its readers! Kudos to the Post for providing it, and thanks to Howard Bashman for the pointer.

The L.A. Times concludes, quite incorrectly:

Miers’ answers on the questionnaire from the anti-abortion group, Texans United for Life, would appear to assuage concerns of many on the conservative right that she would be a reliable vote on the Supreme Court if changes to Roe vs. Wade come under consideration.

Nonsense. The L.A. Times still doesn’t understand that opposition to abortion is not the same as opposition to Roe v. Wade. Senator DiFi doesn’t get it either:

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.)said “the answers clearly reflect that Harriet Miers is opposed to Roe v. Wade” and “this raises very serious concerns about her ability to fairly apply the law without bias in this regard.”

The answers clearly reflect no such thing, Senator DiFi. Justice O’Connor and Justice Kennedy both trumpeted their antiabortion views before joining the Court, and both voted to reaffirm the central holding of Roe. The concerns of this blogger are not assuaged — in the slightest.

Nor, in fairness to Miers, is this a valid reason for any Senator to vote against her nomination — any more than it is a valid reason to vote for her.

4 Responses to “Miers Supported Abortion Ban — So What?”

  1. Yeah, support for an amendment might just mean she thinks the Constitution now guarantees a right to abortion on demand. Or not. DiFi is among the dimmest bulbs in the Senate, if not the dimmest. Something about California Senators and Reps — Pelosi is dumber to DiFi’s dumb.

    Maybe W has a grand (Rovian?) strategy — make Dems think that he and a nuc-u-lar armed Republican majority in the Senate are going to load up the Court with pro-life judicial activists, who’ll interpret the Constitution so that a fetus is a protected person. The Dems will break down and beg him for another Scalia. He’ll have to bring in Ahnuld for the victory speech — I can see it now: “What is best in life? . . .
    To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women.”

    Oh . . . [picks head up off desk, wipes up drool puddle, rubs eyes.] never mind.

    TNugent (6128b4)

  2. …to a vision of Rove doing the perp walk.

    TCO (d7c35a)

  3. Actually, this new information tends to support the conclusion that Miers is pro-Roe, i.e. that an amendment is needed to protect the unborn as they have no sovereign rights.

    This new information tells us much more that may strike some as surprising–you just have to do the analysis.

    I go into this thoroughly at: Getting To Know You

    Paul Deignan (993808)

  4. Oh, please. It is one thing to argue that Miers’s views in 1989 are not necessarily representative of what they are today, or will be after 5 or 10 years on the Court. That’s fair. But to argue that the 1989 version of Harriet Miers could not be trusted to vote against Roe defies reason. It’s one thing to be pro-abortion and anti-Roe, and quite another to anti-abortion and pro-Roe. The former merely requires one to RTFC; the latter requires one to simultaneously believe that (1) abortion is so bad it ought to be outlawed and (2) abortion is so good that the framers of the Constitution must have meant to preserve it somehow. People’s views change over time, of course, but no one is simultaneously anti-abortion and pro-Roe, not Justice O’Connor, not Justice Kennedy, and not Harriet Miers.

    If common sense alone didn’t make it obvious enough that Miers was anti-Roe, her answer to Question 2 should. Even if the anti-abortion / pro-Roe character exists anywhere outside Deignan’s imagination and yours, he/she/it would have to say no to #2.

    Xrlq (428dfd)


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