August 12, 2005
By Karen MacPherson
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
WASHINGTON -- Senate Judiciary Commission Chairman Arlen Specter yesterday urged the abortion rights group NARAL to withdraw its "blatantly untrue and unfair" ad contending that Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. once sided with violent anti-abortion protesters.
In a sharply worded letter to NARAL President Nancy Keenan, Specter, R-Pa., contended that the group's 30-second ad "is not helpful to the pro-choice cause, which I support. When NARAL puts on such an advertisement, in my opinion it undercuts its credibility and injures the pro-choice cause," wrote Specter, who will preside over Roberts' confirmation hearing, set to begin Sept. 6.
Hours after receiving the letter from Specter, NARAL officials said they would change their Roberts ad because the debate over the original ad "has become a distraction from the serious discussion we hoped to have with the American public.''
But Keenan didn't back down from the group's assertion that Roberts opposed the effort to use a civil rights law to block violent abortion protesters at clinics.
In the letter to Specter, she said NARAL would replace the ad with one examining Roberts' record on several points, "including his advocacy for overturning Roe v. Wade, his statement questioning the right to privacy and his arguments against using a federal civil rights law to protect women and their doctors and nurses from those who use blockades and intimidation.''
Keenan also said NARAL remains opposed to Roberts' nomination, adding: "We will continue to educate the public about the threat we firmly believe Mr. Roberts' elevation to the Supreme Court would have on American women's reproductive health and, ultimately, their lives.''
In defending the ad earlier this week, NARAL officials had repeated their assertion that "Roberts sided with a convicted bomber and other activists who preach violence" and was a "senior political appointee responsible for shaping legal strategy" when he did so. They called conservative critics of the ad "disingenuous."
To counter the controversial NARAL ad, the conservative Progress for America Voter Fund yesterday began running its own 30-second spot, charging that "with little to attack in Roberts' superb record, liberals are taking the low road. ... How low can these frustrated liberals sink?"
A number of conservative groups, including the Judicial Confirmation Network and the Family Research Council, wrote to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., urging that he and other party leaders "publicly condemn" NARAL's "desperate smear attack" on Roberts. "Individuals and organizations across the entire political spectrum have criticized the group for the misleading TV ad it is now running, but so far, Democratic Party leaders have been silent on the issue, giving the appearance of putting politics before principle," their letter said.
NARAL spent $500,000 to run its ad on the Fox and CNN cable networks and broadcast stations in Maine and Rhode Island for two weeks. Progress for America Voter Fund was spending $300,000 to run its counter ad for the same period and markets.
NARAL's ad had strongly criticized Roberts' work in 1991 as deputy U.S. solicitor general, when he argued against using a Reconstruction-era civil rights law to stop abortion foes from aggressively, and sometimes violently, blocking access to clinics.
Roberts argued the case twice before the U.S. Supreme Court, which eventually ruled, 6-3, in the administration's favor. As a result, Congress later passed a law limiting abortion-clinic protests, which has since been upheld by the Supreme Court.
While Roberts, now a federal appeals court judge, supported the administration position on legal grounds while in the solicitor general's office, he also pointedly stated then that violent anti-abortion protesters should be prosecuted. "No matter how lofty or sincerely held the goal, those who resort to violence to achieve it are criminals," he wrote in documents the White House released.
But NARAL officials said his statement "was simply the draft of a letter responding to a suggestion from a member of Congress. The legal strategy Roberts crafted speaks much louder than a draft of a letter written for a superior."
Still, other abortion-rights supporters have criticized the NARAL ad as unfair, including Frances Kissling, president of Catholics for a Free Choice, and Walter Dellinger II, acting solicitor general under former President Bill Clinton. Dellinger told ABC this week: "There's nothing in the argument or the briefs that Judge Roberts presented to the Supreme Court ... that could remotely be characterized as excusing violence. That's just not fair."
The University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center, which runs the nonpartisan Factcheck.org., also criticized the ad, especially NARAL's decision to use video of a 1998 Birmingham, Ala., abortion clinic bombing that occurred years after the case Roberts argued.
The ad also features Emily Lyons, a clinic employee severely injured in the bombing. Then a narrator states, "Supreme Court nominee John Roberts filed court briefs supporting violent fringe groups and a convicted clinic bomber." The spot urges viewers to call senators and "tell them to oppose John Roberts. America can't afford a justice whose ideology leads him to excuse violence against other Americans."
Specter's letter to NARAL attacked that statement. He also criticized the ad's "blatantly untrue and unfair" assertions that Roberts "filed court briefs supporting violent fringe groups and a convicted clinic bomber."
"Judge Roberts did not act improperly in his advocacy before the U.S. Supreme Court ... ," Specter wrote. "In fact, ... Judge Roberts has unequivocally stated that those individuals who violently target abortion clinics 'should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.' "
In another development related to Roberts' confirmation, five national religious groups yesterday criticized "Justice Sunday II," an evangelical rally at a Nashville, Tenn., church being nationally televised Sunday to build conservative support for the nominee.
"We are concerned that the events planned by conservative groups in Nashville will continue to falsely claim to represent the only faithful perspective on the Roberts nomination," the Rev. Bill Sinkford, president of the Unitarian Universalist Association, told reporters in a teleconference.
"We affirm the right of any group to express its position on the issues of the day, but we will not remain silent when any group falsely claims to speak for all people of faith."
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, will headline Justice Sunday II. The rally, to be broadcast live to 1,000 churches and carried on Christian television and radio, is sponsored by the Family Research Council.
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