Abortion Advocate to Head Democratic Program Against Bush Judges

National   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Jul 26, 2004   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

Abortion Advocate to Head Democratic Program Against Bush Judges

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
July 26, 2004

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — Just days after a coalition of groups announced an ad campaign designed to blast President Bush for selecting pro-life judges to federal courts, a leading abortion advocate will head up a new campaign for the Democratic Party to attack the president.

Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Terry McAuliffe unveiled a new campaign last week that will be headed up by former NARAL president Kate Michelman.

The DNC’s Campaign to Save the Court will “highlight the critically important issue of how the 2004 Presidential election will affect the future of Supreme Court appointments,” the party said in a statement.

"They have brought me aboard to help educate voters about the threat to our rights," Michelman said in an interview with UPI. "In this election, our rights and liberties are on the ballot."

The program, designed as a voter turnout effort, will debut at the Democratic national convention in Boston on Wednesday.

Detractors say the effort is nothing more than a scare tactic designed to get out the vote. Some observers say they expect it to follow similar NARAL campaigns that have told pro-abortion voters that the Supreme Court is merely one vote away from overturning so-called abortion rights.

In fact, the Supreme Court backs the Roe v. Wade decision that allowed abortion by a 6-3 margin. The one-vote margin is its position, 5-4, in favor of partial-birth abortions.

The winner of the presidential election will have enormous power to shape the direction of the nation’s high court on abortion.

If President Bush is re-elected, court observers expect Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor to retire. Rehnquist opposes abortion and was one of the two dissenters in the Roe case. O’Connor has supported Roe and partial-birth abortions.

If Senator John Kerry wins, pro-abortion Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg are expected to step down.

Each of the four justices is battling age and health issues. The problem for both sides is whether their justices can last four years, until the 2008 presidential elections, should the "wrong" presidential candidate win in November.

Meanwhile, the new Committee for Justice, run by former Bush White House Counsel Boyden Gray, has been established to support the president. The organization has already starting airing advertisements discussing "why President Kerry’s judiciary would be frightening."

Kerry has vowed only to select judges who back abortion.