Sotomayor Signals Support For Roe V. Wade In Meetings With Senators

Main Category: Abortion
Article Date: 19 Jun 2009 - 5:00 PDT

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Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor in conversations with senators has indicated her support for Roe v. Wade, even if she has not explicitly stated that she supports abortion rights, the AP/Yahoo! News reports. According to the AP/Yahoo! News, Sotomayor is "following a time-honored tradition" among nominees of assuring senators that she will not aim to impose a certain agenda, while also avoiding firm commitments on how she might rule on certain issues -- such as abortion rights -- if they come before the court. In questioning Sotomayor, senators hope to obtain assurances that she will honor certain precedents, such as Roe, which allows them to justify their votes for her to their constituents, the AP/Yahoo! News reports. Doug Kendall of the Constitutional Accountability Center said, "There's always a bit of a parlor game that develops in terms of what precisely words said by nominees mean."

Because Sotomayor has never directly ruled on the key issues in Roe, advocates on both sides of the abortion-rights debate have speculated over her views on constitutional privacy rights. White House spokesperson Robert Gibbs has said that President Obama and Sotomayor discussed her "views on unenumerated rights in the Constitution and the theory of settled law." The AP/Yahoo! News reports that Gibbs' comments indicate that Sotomayor would be unlikely to overturn Roe, which supporters consider "settled law." Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Benjamin Cardin (D-Md.), both of whom support abortion rights, said they spoke with Sotomayor about her position during private meetings and were pleased with her answers. Feinstein said that Sotomayor is "a woman who is well-steeped in the law and well-steeped in precedent, and I believe that she has a real respect for precedent." Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), an opponent of abortion rights, said that when he privately asked Sotomayor whether she believed a fetus should have any constitutional rights, she responded that she had never considered the issue (Hirschfeld Davis, AP/Yahoo! News, 6/18).

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