Sotomayor for the Supreme Court

[netmouse]

btw, regarding the Supreme Court nomination, RH realitycheck writes:

Sotomayor's trail of opinions paints a picture of a fair-minded, incisive legal scholar who is unafraid to stake out unpopular but legally meritorious positions. Right-wingers are going to oppose her nomination with full force - we would be foolish to do it for them.

I quite agree with that last bit. With regard to her history, I still don't know a lot, but the NYT article has a lot of links, here's a bit on the empathy thing, and here's Obama's own video about it.

ETA: comments lead me to read this Salon.com discussion by Greenwald, which is also good and contains links to more material relevant to the topic.

Comments

[tlatoani.livejournal.com]

I'm concerned about her beliefs on abortion rights, as (1) we've never seen her directly rule on it, and (2) she's yet another Catholic and the official position of her church is obviously anti-Choice.

[netmouse.livejournal.com]

While it's true she would be the 6th Roman Catholic on a 9-member panel, I find myself wondering about the majority of cases the court actually rules on, which don't have to do with abortion, and the potential for her to do positive things and have an amazing impact on the country and peoples' lives there. Re: abortion, I trust her to follow the rule of law, and I'm not actually sure there are going to be more cases on that topic hitting the supreme court in the near future. Do you expect some?

The quote I put above is from a reproductive health newsletter, an advocacy group for both womens' health and womens' rights with whom I have been consistently impressed since I found out about them a short while ago. To be perfectly honest I rate their endorsement of her track record higher than your concerns about her beliefs.

[tlatoani.livejournal.com]

I find myself wondering about the majority of cases the court actually rules on, which don't have to do with abortion, and the potential for her to do positive things and have an amazing impact on the country and peoples' lives there.

While it's certainly true that there are a lot of issues other than abortion, a 6-3 majority to overturn Roe v. Wade would mean that women could be forced, effectively at gunpoint, to carry a child to term against their will. That is so vile, in my book, that your statement is to me morally equivalent to saying "So she might allow the court to bring back slavery, but look how much good she could do on other issues." I think you're saying it because you don't believe abortion rights are actually at risk, but I don't share that level of confidence.

It is possible that the group your quoting knows more about her beliefs on this topic than I do, in which case I'd defer to them too.

Re: abortion, I trust her to follow the rule of law,

Not sure what you mean on this one. The Supreme Court is allowed to overturn its own decisions.

and I'm not actually sure there are going to be more cases on that topic hitting the supreme court in the near future. Do you expect some?

Of course. There always are, and with Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, and Alito on the court it's a great time for the religious right to try to assert God's ownership of women's wombs. Kennedy can go either way. Which way Sotomayor would go is a vitally inportant question.

[tlatoani.livejournal.com]

(And apparently I can't type today. Forgive the typos... ;-)

[netmouse.livejournal.com]

ps. I know plenty of catholics who are pro-choice, which is something I find a little baffling but have encountered enough that I do not consider membership in the church to be positive proof of someone's beliefs one way or the other, all by itself.

Sotomayor did decide against a group of people who were trying to sue to overturn Bush's decision to remove federal funding to overseas groups that provided abortions. I don't know the legal details of that case, however.

[tlatoani.livejournal.com]

I don't consider it to be either. The problem is, we don't know about her beliefs, and the two pieces of information I have, while of very little use in guessing, both lean negative.

[sueij.livejournal.com]

The Catholic Church actually asserts the "primacy of conscience," which says that each Catholic should get all the information, especially considering and valuing the Church's doctrine, and then make their own prayerful decision.

Unfortunately, even most Catholics don't know about this, since it's not in the Church's interest to have its members off making their own (informed) decisions. So most Catholics who hold differing opinions based on their own research, consideration, and prayerful process just figure they're "bad" Catholics.