Questions on Sotomayor

The Republican and right-wing hysterical attacks on President Obama's nomination of Sonia Sotomayor reveal not only how much is at stake with a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court, but how afraid they are of a judge who identifies as a woman of color. They have latched onto and condemned Sotomayor's comments given in a talk to college students: "I would hope a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life." In that talk, she did nothing more than express a very simple truth: "Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences. . .our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging."

While there is precious little in Sotomayor's judgment history for Republicans and the Right to grab onto in their attempt to paint her as a "racist," as both Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh charged, that has not stopped the rabid attacks, like Colorado former Rep. Tom Tancredo comparing her service with the civil rights organization, the National Council of La Raza, to working with a "Latino KKK without the hoods and nooses." That they ignore her 16 years of documented decisions and zero in on one speech to attack reveals the truth of her statement.

What is also painfully true--especially to those who want a better world--is that the Republicans took every opportunity to ram through the most ideologically tainted anti-labor, anti-environment, anti-abortion ideologues they could find: John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito. Their destructive rulings have wallowed in "personal feelings and political preferences." So outrageously ideological were they in their ruling outlawing DX abortions, that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg read her dissent from the bench, revealing just how completely their "inherent physiological or cultural differences" prejudiced their decision.

REPUBLICANS REVEAL CULTURAL BIAS

Despite both Alito's and Roberts's claims that they respect judicial precedent, Ginsburg said their decision overrode the clear precedent that anti-abortion laws must contain exceptions for pregnancies which endanger women's lives or health. The decision, she pointed out, wallows in anti-abortion ideology as it "invokes an anti-abortion shibboleth": they lied that women who have abortions "regret their choices," and suffer from "severe depression and loss of esteem." She excoriated the justices who throughout "the opinion refer to obstetrician-gynecologists and surgeons who perform abortions not by the titles of their medical specialties, but by the pejorative label, 'abortion doctor.' A fetus is described as an 'unborn child,' and as a 'baby'...and the reasoned medical judgments of highly trained doctors dismissed as 'preferences' motivated by 'mere convenience.'"

Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell revealed clearly their sickening hypocrisy: "We will thoroughly examine her record to ensure she understands that the role of a jurist in our democracy is to apply the law evenhandedly, despite their own feelings or personal or political preferences."

Considering the stacking of the Supreme Court by George W. Bush with two right-wing ideologues who are anti-abortion to the extreme when he had no real mandate from the electorate, why did Obama, who has an overwhelming mandate for change--which most certainly includes changing the anti-abortion leaning of the Supreme Court--nominate someone whose views on abortion rights are said to be unknown?

ABORTION VIEWS UNKNOWN?

Reportedly before making a decision on whom to nominate, Obama had a 60- to 70-page memorandum on each candidate. According to an aide, "There were five things that were on his mind: age, experience, independence, confidence and diversity." It is indefensible that his list did not include keeping abortion legal. Just as outrageous is the report that he has not asked Sotomayor her views on abortion or even the right to privacy upon which Roe v. Wade is based. Are we to believe nothing in those 60-plus pages gave a hint of Sotomayor's views on women's right to control their own bodies?

Well, there are a few hints: in 2002 she wrote an opinion on a case upholding the Bush administration's Global Gag Rule, the policy of withholding aid from international groups that provide, or even discuss, abortion--a rule directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of women. Another danger sign, from 2007, is not in the actual opinion she expressed but the language she used. In criticizing the position that women's husbands could not seek asylum because of China's abortion policy, she compared "the termination of a wanted pregnancy. . .as akin, no doubt, to the killing of a child." With this background, as scanty as it is, it is inexcusable for the National Organization for Women to be cheering her nomination simply because she's a woman. Have they learned nothing from the ill-considered support for Clarence Thomas because he is Black?

The nomination of Sotomayor is an opportunistic appeal from Obama to the growing Latino/a demographic. It also appears that Obama is so anxious to find "common ground" with anti-abortionists (see "The Tragedy of Dr. Tiller's murder") and to damp down the debate, that he was anxious to find a candidate whose views on abortion were unknown. Both facts may make it easier for Judge Sotomayor to be the one to replace Justice David Souter, but Obama's pragmatism comes at the cost of playing with the future and lives of women.

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