The Full Post: "Sources: Judge Roberts is Indeed Pro-Life"

Here is my full post that is linked to below in an earlier entry:

Two sources from opposite ends of the political spectrum agree that Supreme Court nominee John Roberts will be a pro-life justice. From the liberal end, Newsweek columnist Howard Fineman has this tidbit from an unnamed source:

"At least one friend and former close associate I spoke to thinks that, given the chance, Roberts WOULD vote to strike down Roe. But you can't prove it -- and interlocutors in the Judiciary Committee won't be able to prove it either."

Howard Fineman at this MSNBC link.

From the conservative pro-life end, the Republican blog RedState.org has endorsed Roberts' nomination with this tantalizing remark:

"There is much we do not know about John Roberts. There is also much we do not "officially know," but privately are sure of. We at RedState know Judge Roberts is right on life and is right for the Court."

See RedState.org for July 21, 2005 (emphasis added).

One media article I read speculated that Roberts has avoided controversial statements on hot issues precisely to avoid confirmation problems. That certainly makes sense given that he twice missed confirmation in the past: once in 1992 because of Clinton's election and more recently in 2001. He finally made it to the federal bench in 2003. So he has known since the early nineties that he is someone who would likely be nominated by a future Republican president for a federal judgeship. For whatever it is worth, today's N.Y. Times described Roberts as a friend of Clarence Thomas and also mentioned that Roberts' unambiguously pro-life wife works on the board of a Catholic charitable organization along with the wife of conservative legal scholar Robert Bork who was famously denied confirmation in 1987.

The proof is in the pudding. But the signs are good. The rest is in God's hands.