I do not see how the columnist who wrote this story looks at these cases and determines that Sotomayor is some sort of stealth anti-choicer. First he mentions that she agreed that women, as well as men, who faced forced abortions in China should be granted asylum. Even the most rabid pro-choice zealot doesn't believe women should be forced to have abortions. That doesn't mean she's going to turn around and say that women who want abortions should be denied. That's a strawman argument (legalized abortion=forced abortion) that the right-wing has been throwing around for years. Obviously, she should have to give her opinion on this case since it is the most important issue likely to come before the court but I wouldn't worry about it. Obama isn't going to nominate someone who is hostile to women's rights.
But in his briefing to reporters on Tuesday, the White House spokesman, Robert Gibbs, was asked whether Mr. Obama had asked Judge Sotomayor about abortion or privacy rights. Mr. Gibbs replied that Mr. Obama “did not ask that specifically.”
Every President says that because they don't want to be accused of having an abortion litmus test for judicial nominees. Bush said the same thing and we all know how his nominees turned out. Obama may not have asked that question directly but I'm sure he's just as aware of Sotomayor's Roe bonafides as Bush was of Alito and Roberts.
In a 2004 case, she largely sided with some anti-abortion protesters who wanted to sue some police officers for allegedly violating their constitutional rights by using excessive force to break up demonstrations at an abortion clinic. Judge Sotomayor said the protesters deserved a day in court.
So because she sided with defendants against police brutality she must be anti-choice? So if Alito sides with a pro-choice CEO against his minimum wage workers does that make Alito pro-choice? Maybe she just doesn't like police brutality.
Judge Sotomayor’s decision turned on a technicality, her opinion described in detail the woman’s account of how she would be persecuted in China because she had once permitted the escape of a woman who was seven months pregnant and scheduled for a forced abortion. In China, to allow such an escape was a crime, the woman said.
Again, pro-choice /= pro-forced abortion. Chinese abortion laws have nothing to do with a woman's right to choose and everything to do with the government's desire to control every aspect of peoples' lives (sounds like a religion) and the fact that China is suffering a population crisis and they can't come up with a better solution.
Phillip Jauregui, president of the conservative Judicial Action Group, said he was not convinced by any anti-abortion overtones to such rulings because, he said, even “the most radical feminist” would object to forcing women to abort wanted pregnancies.
See, even the anti-choice whackos admit it.
Mr. Waldman of BeliefNet.com also noted that Judge Sotomayor was raised Roman Catholic, although there are many judges who do not follow the church’s dogma — like opposing abortion and the death penalty — in their jurisprudence.
Because of course all Roman Catholics, even ones who can only be described as being "raised Roman Catholic", follow everything that asshole in a dress in Rome says...except of course for when they don't...
Moreover, he said, it is significant that as a group, Hispanics include a higher percentage of abortion opponents than many other parts of the Democratic Party’s coalition. Judge Sotomayor’s parents moved from Puerto Rico.
And of course while white people, and even specific groups like Irish, are unique and hold varying opinions on a number of issues, Hispanics are monolithic (despite being made up of many very different groups and cultures) and believe exactly the same things about everything.
“At the very least, she grew up in a culture that didn’t hold the pro-life position in contempt,” Mr. Waldman said.
Last I checked the culture she grew up in was America. Her parents are from Puerto Rico, not Paraguay. Just because the anti-choice crowd views the pro-choice movement as little more than murderers and sluts doesn't mean we have the same rigid, unthinking orthodoxy when it comes to them.
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