Abortion rights group presses
Republican centrists on Roberts

Tom Curry National affairs writer • Profile • E-mail

WASHINGTON - NARAL Pro-Choice America, the nation’s leading abortion rights advocacy group, will go on the air in Maine and Rhode Island Wednesday, and nationally on CNN and Fox News, with a two-week, $500,000 television ad purchase which accuses Supreme Court nominee John Roberts of being a judge "whose ideology leads him to excuse violence against other Americans."

The targets of the ad appear to be two Republican senators who are running for reelection next year: Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, whom NARAL has already endorsed, and Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine.

The ad assails Roberts for the legal brief he filed in Bray v. Alexandria Women's Health Clinic, a 1993 case, in which he said the Civil Rights Act of 1871 did not apply to violent abortion protestors, but that state remedies were adequate to punish and deter them.

The Supreme Court, in a 6-to-3 decision, agreed with Roberts’s view.

Supreme Court agreed with Roberts
The majority found that in the actions of violent anti-abortion clinic protestors, there was no racial or class-based hatred as their motive, as required in order to be covered by the 1871 law.

Roberts argued the case before the Supreme Court when he was serving as Deputy Solicitor General in the administration of President George H.W. Bush.

"We are not suggesting that Mr. Roberts condones or supports clinic violence," said NARAL president Nancy Keenan.

But the NARAL ad itself says, “America can’t afford a justice whose ideology leads him to excuse violence against other Americans.”

Keenan said Monday that Roberts’s “ideological views of the law compel him to go out of his way to argue in support” of violent anti-abortion protestors.

She said he “sided with groups that supported clinic violence. The government did not have to file an amicus brief, they could have stood down on that issue, and they did not…. He was a political appointee who shared the ideology of that administration. He was the one who was the architect of policy; he was the architect of legal briefs, and the architect of strategy of that administration.”

Congress resolved the issue by passing a 1994 law that made it a crime to use force or the threat of force to intimidate abortion clinic workers or women seeking abortions.

How the vote will play in Rhode Island
The apparent targets of the NARAL ads, Snowe and Chafee, each have voting records which show strong support for maintaining the 1973 Roe v Wade decision that legalized abortion nationally.

For example, both Snowe and Chafee voted for a “sense of the Senate” resolution in 2003 that said Roe v. Wade secures an important constitutional right and should not be overturned.

Keenan said Monday that “the chance of Roe v. Wade being overturned is likely with him (Roberts) on the bench.”

If Roberts did lose the votes of a few of the Republican senators who support Roe, such as Chafee, Snowe, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, that might make the roll call vote uncomfortably close for President Bush and Roberts. (This assumes that Democratic senators do not use the filibuster tactic to prevent a vote on the Roberts nomination.)

Are there any electoral repercussions for Chafee or Snowe if they vote "yes" on the Roberts nomination?  Would a substantial number of pro-Roe Republican voters respond by casting ballots for the Democratic candidates in Maine and Rhode Island?

Snowe appears to be less at risk since, so far, she has no viable, top-tier challenger.

But Chafee does face a potentially formidable foe, former state attorney general Sheldon Whitehouse.

“There will be electoral repercussions for Chafee” if he votes for Roberts, said Darrel West, a political scientist at Brown University. “He is a Republican representing a blue state. Everyone is watching how he votes.”

Chafee “has a stellar pro-choice record in the Senate and so we fully expect he’ll do the right thing here,” said NARAL political director Beth Shipp.

Chafee issued a non-committal statement on July 20 saying, "It is important that Senators not rush to judgment one way or another" on the Roberts nomination.

The Chafee campaign did not return a phone call seeking comment for this article.

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