Miers urged legal group to adopt neutral abortion stance

[Judi Lynn]

Posted 10/3/2005 1:54 PM

Miers urged legal group to adopt neutral abortion stance

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush's choice to fill the seat of retiring Supreme Court Justice and moderate abortion rights supporter Sandra Day O'Connor was a leader in an unsuccessful fight to get the nation's largest lawyers' group to reconsider its pro-abortion rights stance.
As president of the Texas State Bar in 1993, Harriet Miers urged the national American Bar Association to put the abortion issue to a referendum of the group's full membership. She questioned at the time whether the ABA should "be trying to speak for the entire legal community" on an issue that she said "has brought on tremendous divisiveness" within the ABA.

Miers was among a group of lawyers from the Texas bar and elsewhere who had argued that the ABA should have a neutral stance on abortion.

The ABA's policymaking body overwhelmingly rejected the Texas lawyers' group's 1993 proposal to put the issue to a referendum by mail of the ABA's then-roster of about 360,000 members.
(snip/...)

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-10-03-miers-abortion_x.htm

[papau]

1. WSJ seems to imply Mier is anti-abortion and a Scalia type "orginalist"

So is Ms. Miers's not just a judicial restraint/limited role of the court/judicial conservative, she is a Scalia anti-abortion "orginalist" with no respect for precedent?

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB112835192385358534-jln6lcmyrapjcrVFjFwOO1FFy8k_20061003.html?mod=tff_main_tff_top

<snip>Marvin Olasky, a journalism professor and the father of the "compassionate conservative" movement, posted a series of excerpts from interviews with friends and acquaintances of Harriet Miers he conducted before the official nomination. One of the interviews was with Texas Supreme Court Justice Nathan Hecht, who said he has known Ms. Miers for 30 years and described their relationship as "very close friends."

Quoting Mr. Hecht on Ms. Miers's judicial philosophy: "She's an originalist -- that's the way she takes the Bible," and that's her approach to the Constitution as well -- "Originalist -- it means what it says."

Mr. Hecht says he and Ms. Miers "went to two or three pro-life dinners in the late 80s or early 90s."<snip>


http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/weekly/aa022701a.htm
Scalia on the Constitution


U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia explained and defended his "originalist" approach to constitutional interpretation in a closing address to a Princeton University conference on James Madison, fourth president and framer of the Constitution.

Speaking on Feb. 23, 2001, Justice Scalia explained that he, like Madison, interprets the Constitution according to the "common sense" meaning and definition of the document's words at the time they were written. An opposite approach, Scalia suggested from that applied by Justices who believe the Constitution "changes from age to age in order to meet the needs of a changing society."

Scalia criticized the second approach, saying that it too often results in crafting subjective interpretations of the Constitution to address issues that could and should be handled by Congress.

Calling his view of the Constitution an "originalist" view, Scalia conceded it often places him in a position of supporting laws that do not seem to make sense.

"It may well be stupid, but if it's stupid, pass a law!" he said. "Don't think the originalist interpretation constrains you. To the contrary. My Constitution is a very flexible Constitution. You want a right to abortion? Create it the way all rights are created in a democracy, pass a law. The death penalty? Pass a law. That's flexibility

<snip>

[nvliberal]

2. I doubt she's either.

There's a lot of conjecture here about her stands. However, the christo-fascists wouldn't be so upset if she was a Scalia clone and they'd support her regardless of whether she donated to Democrats in the distant past.

[jsamuel]

3. They are upset if Rush tells them to be.

[Paligal]

4. Whiff of a record on abortion

Not sure if she's anti-abortion, but she donated money to Donald B Stenberg, who brought the issue before the Supreme Court again for Nebraska:

"Nebraska Attorney General Donald B. Stenberg defends the "partial-birth abortion" ban as a prohibition against infanticide. When Ginsburg asks how it can be infanticide when the fetus is not yet viable, Stenberg says that pre- and post-viability of the fetus is only one "bright line" test of the distinction between abortion and infanticide. Scalia, says it may be enough to just "look more like infanticide" because the killing is happening outside the womb."
http://slate.msn.com/id/52653/entry/81244/device/html40/workarea/3

Don't know...

[Megahurtz]

5. They ALL just need to shut the fuck up about abortion.

The only time abortion is their business is if any of them want to have one themselves.

Don't like abortion? Then don't have one!

[converted_democrat]

6. Well, that would be a change from what I've read. PP link.

During Miers' tenure as head of the Texas Bar Association she was a leader in the campaign to reverse the American Bar Association's pro-choice position on the right to choose. Had this campaign been successful, which it was not, the ABA would have been returned to its former position of neutrality.

http://www.plannedparenthood.org/pp2/portal/files/portal/media/pressreleases/pr-051003-miers.xml