Confirm Roberts

By Steven W. Mosher

The President has nominated D.C. Court of Appeals Judge John Roberts to the Supreme Court. The question of the hour for social conservatives is whether Judge Roberts, if confirmed, will help put an end to the judicially-imposed moral disorder that has forced abortion, not to mention pornography and homosexuality, on the American people. From what we know now, the answer is yes.

We'll leave examinations of Roberts' legal record to legal experts and talk about what we've learned of his religious and family life. First, there is the fact of Roberts' Catholicism. He was raised in a Catholic family, went to Catholic high school, and claims membership in the Catholic Church. Now, admittedly, membership in the Catholic Church alone would not automatically place him in the ranks of those who would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. Indeed, there are many "Catholics" in Washington who, like Teddy Kennedy, work at cross purposes to what the Church teaches about life and family. CINOs, "Catholics in name only," we call them.

Roberts, however, is said by friends of ours to be "devout." The parish in Washington, D.C., that he and his family attend, is known for its orthodoxy. Moreover, he keeps his Sunday obligation, that is, he is in Mass each and every Sunday. He who keeps the Third Commandment, "Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy," will likely honor the others as well, including the Fifth, "Thou shalt not Kill."

Another sign of his regard for the sanctity of life is that he and his wife, apparently unable to have children of their own, have adopted two children, a boy and a girl. Now there are certainly couples in America who have adopted one child who are not pro-life. One thinks here of the aging DINKs who, rendered infertile by age, infection, or abortion, adopt a child for the "experience."

Those couples who adopt a second child, however, nearly always have a real commitment to life. They are painfully aware from past experience that adoption is not only expensive, but is a time-consuming and emotionally challenging experience as well. They know that even young women who reject abortion in favor of adoption may change their minds at the last minute, leaving would-be adoptive parents with an empty nursery and an aching heart. And they know that abortion-on-demand and the breakdown of the family is responsible for this state of affairs.

While Roberts is not on record as having expressed his personal views on Roe v. Wade, his wife has not been nearly so reticent. Jane Sullivan Roberts has a long association with a Washington, D.C., pro-life group called Feminists for Life. She served as the Executive Vice President of the group from 1995 to 1999, and currently serves as its pro-bono legal counsel. In other words, John Roberts' wife is a movement pro-lifer. She is one of us.

Taken together, we believe that this means that President Bush has kept his promise, made publicly to millions of Americans during the 2000 and 2004 elections, to nominate justices in the mold of Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia to the Supreme Court. And it is worth noting that both Scalia, who has nine children, one a priest, and Thomas, a convert, are both serious about their Catholic Faith.

Few would deny that only someone with a faith deeply anchored in a Trinitarian world view will be able to reverse the moral chaos that the Court has drifted into under the influence of Justices Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer. And only such a person will have the moral courage to end abortion-on-demand, restore the sanctity of marriage, strengthen the family, allow the expression of faith in the public square, and restore the proper balance of power between the braches of government.
Someone who, in short, will work to correct the judicially-imposed moral disorder of the last 30 years.

Even now, pro-aborts, and their allies in the media, the universities, and on foundation staffs, are agitating for their pro-abortion allies in the U.S. Senate to "bork" Judge Roberts. At least some Senators, it is virtually certain, will attempt the same kind of disgraceful character assassination tactics on Judge Roberts that annihilated Judge Robert Bork's chances in the eighties.

The only way to stop "borking" as a political strategy is to defy it and to defeat it. We have a generational opportunity to move the court back to constitutional principles and protect America's unborn.

Confirm Roberts.


Steven W. Mosher is President of the Population Research Institute.

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