McCain Reiterates Opposition To Abortion, Says He Would Appoint Strict Constructionist Judges To Supreme Court

Main Category: Abortion
Also Included In: Medical Malpractice / Litigation
Article Date: 10 Feb 2008 - 0:00 PDT

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At the Conservative Political Action Conference Thursday, Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) reiterated his opposition to abortion rights and said he would appoint strict constructionist judges to the Supreme Court, the New York Times reports (Bumiller/Kirkpatrick, New York Times, 2/8).

At the conference in Washington, D.C., McCain said, "I believe today, as I believed 25 years ago, in ... judges who enforce, and not make, our laws; the social values that are our true source of our strength; and, generally, the steadfast defense of our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, which I have defended my entire career as God-given to the born and the unborn."

McCain said he intends to nominate judges to the Supreme Court "who have proven themselves worthy of our trust that they take as their sole responsibility the enforcement of laws made by the people's elected representatives." McCain added that he would appoint judges of the "character and quality" of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito and "who can be relied upon to respect the values of the people whose rights, laws and property they are sworn to defend" (Speech transcript, 2/7).

President Bush did not mention McCain's name while addressing the conference on Friday morning but said, "We have had good debates and soon we will have a nominee who will carry a conservative banner into this election and beyond." He added, "I'm absolutely confident that with your help, we will elect a person who shares our principles" (Riechmann, AP/Google.com, 2/8).

According to the Wall Street Journal, McCain's voting record on "core conservative issues," including his opposition to a constitutional amendment that would ban abortion, "will continue to rile conservatives regardless" of Thursday's speech (Holmes et al., Wall Street Journal, 2/8). James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, endorsed Republican candidate and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee for president after former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney suspended his presidential campaign Thursday.

Dobson criticized McCain for his support of human embryonic stem cell research funding, among other issues (Gorski, AP/Google.com, 2/7). According to the AP/Google.com, Bush expressed support for his own decision to twice veto legislation that would have expanded embryonic stem cell research funding and lauded recent advances in stem cell research that could yield embryonic-like stem cell lines without destroying human embryos (AP/Google.com, 2/8).

C-SPAN video of McCain's speech is available online (McCain, C-SPAN, 2/7).

PBS' "NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" on Thursday included a discussion with Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, and David Bossie, president of Citizens United, about McCain's comments on judges and his record on abortion-rights issues, among other topics (Woodruff, "NewsHour with Jim Lehrer," PBS, 2/7). Audio, video and a transcript of the segment are available online.

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