Roe Row

Manuel Miranda wrote in OpinionJournal Pro-lifers largely stayed out of the Roberts fight. That was a mistake.

I disagree. If the pro-lifers had joined the fight, Roberts might or might not have been confirmed, and if he was, it would have taken a lot longer. As it is, he is about to be confirmed, and should be the Chief Justice for 30 years or longer.

.... Preparing for the Supreme Court fight, pro-lifers were told by White House surrogates to stay out of the light and out of the newspapers, to be quiet so as not to scare the horses.... Ever so smoothly, pro-lifers were corralled and managed, so that if the president appointed yet another Republican disappointment to the Supreme Court, it would be too late after the fact to do anything about it. It isn't that pro-life leaders don't trust President George W. Bush. They do. They trust what they think is a working internal compass.

I agree GWB has a good internal compass. And he also knows what is important in selecting a judge. While overturning Roe would be wonderful, what is even more important is getting judges that will do their job, and decide cases without "making law". It is the legislature's job to make laws, not the Judical Branch's.

Yet there is the fear that for some who surround him "Roe versus Wade" are merely two alternative means of exiting New Orleans. There was the White House communicator who called MSNBC to berate them over a headline that suggested that John Roberts was pro-life; as if such news would bring down the Roberts nomination. And even now, the president is being advised by timid senators and aids to avoid a next selection that will cause commotion. How alarming then it must have been for the children of country-club Republicans scattered throughout GOP officialdom to hear nearly every Republican senator in the Roberts hearings make it resplendently clear that the fight of our times is over Roe:

• Lindsay Graham of South Carolina: "Roe v. Wade: It divides America. . . . There are plenty of women in South Carolina who have an opposite view about abortion. . . . I daresay that 90% of the Republican Caucus is pro-life.
• Jeff Sessions of Alabama: "You committed to Sen. Specter that you would bring no hidden agendas to this matter, that you would consider any case that came up under Roe. . . . We will take you at your word that your mind is open and you will evaluate the matter fairly according to the high standards of justice that you can bring to bear to that issue and any others like it that come up. Will you give us that commitment?"
• Tom Coburn of Oklahoma: "I've delivered 4,000 babies. . . . And I won't pressure you on this issue. .But for the listeners of this hearing, if, in fact, life is the presence of a heartbeat and brain wave, it's important for everybody in the country to know that at 16 days postconception, a heartbeat is present."
• Sam Brownback of Kansas: "Perhaps the Supreme Court's most notorious exercise of raw political power came in Roe v. Wade. . . . Since that time, nearly 40 million children have been aborted in America, 40 million lives that could be amongst us but are not, beautiful, innocent faces that could bless our existence. . . . It is noteworthy to me that a supermajority of committee members have asked you about privacy and leading up to questions on Roe, which I think only makes the point that this is an issue that should be left into the political system and not into the judicial system, where it is today."

These are all very valid statements by Legislators (the people that make laws). They are hoping to reverse a bad court decision by stacking the court in the other direction. But the approriate way to do it would be for the legislature to pass a constitution ammendment to do what they want, and the USSC would not be able to reverse that.

After the fact, it is impossible to imagine that Senate Republicans would have allowed their Democratic colleagues to harangue Mr. Roberts with questions on Roe and abortion rights with the liberal premise that their position is inarguably right, without an equal and thoughtful countervailing effort. Yet before the fact one does not need an imagination. That is exactly what many pro-life leaders did, they abandoned the field of national debate over Roe and left it to others to occupy. They did it when they neglected the surrogate fight in recent years over the appellate nominees and over judicial filibusters, and with their fright of the cameras and the quotation marks. If there is disappointment in the president's next pick, the blame can be squarely placed. The blame goes to the silent. As Mr. Krauthammer put it, it is all about Roe.