Senator Points John Roberts to False Basis for Abortion Decisions 
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
September 14, 2005
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — Supreme Court nominee John Roberts may not be able to answer many questions about abortion because the issue will come before the high court. However, a key pro-life senator made sure the nominee to lead the nation’s highest court had a firm understanding of the false basis behind the Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions.
During the first day of hearings on Roberts’ nomination, Senate Judiciary chairman Arlen Specter, an abortion advocate, hoped to solidify in Roberts’ mind the notion that Roe v. Wade had been upheld 30 times in Supreme Court decisions after the 1973 landmark case.
Sen. Sam Brownback, a Kansas Republican, told Roberts it didn’t matter how many cases followed a precedent-setting one. He pointed to Brown v. Board of Education, which overturned 60 years of prohibiting black Americans from attending schools with white students.
"We’ve had a discussion about this super stare decisis issue," Brownback explained. "And I just want to hold up a quick chart if I could — if I’ve got it back here — the notion that, because Roe has not been overturned in 30-some cases, makes it a super stare decisis: Plessy had not been overturned in a series of cases over a period of 60 years, where the court at each time looked at it, discussed it, decided against overturning it."
"Yet I don’t think anybody would agree that Plessy shouldn’t have been overturned," Brownback said.
Earlier this year, Brownback held hearings on the two Supreme Court cases that ushered in an era of 44 million abortions. He told Roberts the two women who were the subject of the cases have said they never wanted an abortion and have filed a lawsuit, which courts have ruled against, seeking to overturn the cases.
"I believe I was used and abused by the court system in America. Instead of helping a woman in Roe v. Wade, I brought destruction to me and millions of women throughout the nation," Brownback quoted Norma McCorvey, the Roe of Roe v. Wade, as saying.
"I made up the story that I had been raped to help justify my abortion," McCorvey told Congress.
"Facts. Facts. In Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, falsified statements," Brownback told Roberts. "And upon this we’ve based this constitutional right that’s been found that we now have 40 million fewer children in this country to bless us with?"
Brownback also told Roberts about a disabled man named Jimmy who runs the elevators that shuttle members of the Senate from the Senate floor to their offices.
"His warm smile welcomes us every day. We’re a better body for him," Brownback said.
"And, yet, we’re ennobled by him and what he does and how he lifts up our humanity and 80 to 90 percent of the kids in this country like Jimmy never get here," Brownback said of abortions of disabled babies.
