August (Web-only) 2005

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L.A. Times: Roberts worked on Romer v. Evans
Pro-life groups may be heartened by a Washington Times article today detailing another case of Supreme Court nominee John Roberts upsetting abortion-rights groups.

Weblog earlier noted that pro-life and conservative religious organizations are talking a lot less about Roe v. Wade these days than they are about 1965's Griswold v. Connecticut, which said the right to privacy made anti-contraception laws unconstitutional.

Documents released this week include one case where Roberts discussed Griswold. "All of us, for example, may heartily endorse a 'right to privacy,'" Roberts wrote. "That does not, however, mean that courts should discern such an abstraction in the Constitution, arbitrarily elevate it over other constitutional rights and powers by attaching the label 'fundamental,' and then resort to it as, in the words of one of Justice [Hugo] Black's dissents, 'a loose, flexible, uncontrolled standard for holding laws unconstitutional.'"

The Times quotes Karen Pearl, interim president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, as being "gravely concerned." "The draft article attacks the very bedrock of reproductive freedom," she said.

But so far no pro-family groups have responded to a front-page Los Angeles Times article that notes Roberts's involvement on behalf of gay-rights advocates in the landmark 1996 case Romer v. Evans—a Supreme Court decision widely lamented and criticized by religious conservatives.

Times reporter Richard Serrano writes that Roberts "did not write the legal briefs or argue the case before the high court, but he was instrumental in reviewing filings and preparing oral arguments, according to several lawyers intimately involved in the case. … ...