Will Roberts support
Roe v. Wade?

According to recurrent polls, the majority of the American people are in support of the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade – even though other polls indicate a majority opposed to partial-birth abortion.

During the presidency of George H.W. Bush, there came from the office of the principal deputy in the solicitor general's office, a brief which John G. Roberts helped write, and which stated: "We continue to believe that Roe was wrongly decided and should be overturned."

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Several years later, in 2003, this same principal deputy, Roberts, during confirmation hearings for the appellate court, testified as follows:

I do not believe it is proper to infer a lawyer's personal views from the positions that a lawyer may advocate in litigations on behalf of a client. Roe is binding precedent. And if I were confirmed as a circuit judge, I would be bound allow it.

This surely suggests that if approved by the U.S. Senate for that vacated seat, Judge Roberts would not participate in setting aside Roe v. Wade – although he might well oppose partial-birth abortion.

• From Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority: "They want to pass it off that he was just a lawyer, a mouthpiece. But he was more than that."

• Nancy Keenan, president of National Abortions Pro-Choice America, told the New York Times: "There's a record of clear legal activism. They trusted him to write the briefs."

• U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.: "Because he has statements on both sides of this issue – one as deputy solicitor and one as judicial nominee – it's going to require our questioning him very carefully on this issue."

Judge Roberts appears to be so bright and has such a profound record in his litigating cases, that he will be well prepared for the likes of Sens. Schumer, Kennedy and other debaters.

The New York Times notes: "Judge Roberts' wife, Jane Marie Sullivan, a lawyer, had been active in Feminists for Life, an anti-abortion group."

Should that be held against him? On almost every political issue except abortion, my wife – Berkeley Democrat, Sylvia Kinsolving, who I absolutely adore – and I also thoroughly disagree.

And Wes Pruden, editor of the Washington Times, notes:

First they lost their domination of the media; the New York Times, the Washington Post and the television networks no longer dictate what Americans read, watch and listen to, and now they're learning what happens when you lose a succession of national elections with no realistic hope of turning things around soon.

Experience teaches even Republicans a thing or two. Borking won't be so easy this time.