The Latest on the Harriet Miers
Supreme Court Nomination

Recently revealed excerpts from a speech by Harriet Miers are DEEPLY TROUBLING. Much of the following information has been taken from an October 26th Washington Post article.

During a 1993 speech to a Dallas women’s group, Miss Miers talked about abortion and the separation of church and state. Miers said, “The underlying theme in most of these cases is the insistence of more self-determination. And the more I think about these issues, the more self-determination makes sense.”

White House spokesman, Jim Dyke, said the speeches are “entirely consistent” with the conservative doctrine of judicial restraint. I’m not so sure. Keep reading.

This is a rare situation where I would agree with Kate Michelman, former NARAL president. “If you take what she said at face value, you would conclude that she recognizes the right of a woman to choose an abortion as a matter of self-determination.”

(NARAL is a hard-core pro-abortion lobby organization.)

While speaking to the Executive Women of Dallas during spring of 1993, Miss Miers said, “The ongoing debate continues surrounding the attempt to once again criminalize abortions or to once and for all guarantee the freedom of the individual women’s [sic] right to decide for herself whether she will have an abortion.”

This is typical pro-abortion rhetoric to categorize protecting babies from abortion as “criminaliz[ing] abortions.” Further, it’s more pro-abortion semantics to refer to abortion as “the freedom of the individual women’s right to decide for herself.”

Miss Miers' troubling comments continue. She said that, “we gave up” a long time ago on “legislating religion or morality.”

Based on these remarks, I find it very hard for anyone to effectively argue that we should still think Harriet Miers is a safe pro-life choice for the US Supreme Court. Of course we await the November 7th hearings, if things proceed that far, to more fully flesh this out.

As promised, I’ll keep you posted as we get more information.

Sincerely for LIFE,

Bradley Mattes
Executive Director
Life Issues Institute
www.lifeissues.org

10/26/05