Harriet Miers Tells Senator: No One Knows My Abortion Vote 
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
October 18, 2005
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — As controversy swirls around the nomination of White House chief counsel Harriet Miers to replace outgoing pro-abortion Justice Sandra Day O’Connor on the Supreme Court, Miers told a leading pro-abortion senator on the Senate Judiciary Committee that she has not promised anyone how she would vote on a potential case to overturn Roe v. Wade.
"Nobody knows how I would rule on Roe v. Wade," Miers said, according to Sen. Charles Schumer, one of the top Democrats on the Judicial Panel.
Still Schumer and leading pro-abortion Democrats want to know more about a private telephone call featuring top pro-life advocates. During the call, two Texas pro-life judges indicated they knew Miers well enough to know she is pro-life and both, according to notes obtained by the Wall St. Journal, indicated Miers would vote to overturn Roe.
Schumer told Knight Ridder News is was possible that the Judiciary Committee would possibly subpoena the participants in the call to find out whether the White House engineered a campaign to promote pro-life groups that Miers would be okay on abortion.
"You can’t have a campaign for a nominee based on whispers and winks," Schumer told Knight Ridder.
The speculation was fueled in part by a Wall St. Journal article written by John Fund which said the newspaper obtained a memo outlining what was said during the call, in which White House advisor Karl Rove may have participated.
Someone asked whether Miers would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade and two pro-life Texas judges supposedly said yes.
"Absolutely," said U.S. District Judge Ed Kinkeade of Texas.
"I agree with that," said Texas Supreme Court Justice Nathan Hecht, a longtime Miers friend and companion, added.
On Monday, the White House said it did not initiate the phone call.
"That was not a call organized by the White House, and as far as I’ve been able to learn, no one at the White House was involved on that call," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.
Miers told Schumer that she’d never discussed Roe v. Wade with Kinkeade or Hecht, Schumer said.
One pro-life person involved with the call said the two judges weren’t promising a vote but speculation on what Miers might do based on their knowledge of her.
"They felt she was pro-life. But they said they did not know for sure," the pro-life advocate told Knight Ridder.
