NARAL Reenters Media Battle Over Roberts

Abortion-rights TV ad faults Roberts on privacy views

By Mark Memmott, USA TODAY
Fri Aug 26, 9:51 AM

The nation's leading abortion-rights group reentered the media battle over Judge John Roberts' nomination to the Supreme Court on Friday, releasing a TV ad that warns he might weaken Americans' "right to privacy."

The ad from NARAL Pro-Choice America follows an earlier spot that the group withdrew from the airwaves after strong protests from Roberts' supporters over its charge that he had given legal aid to "fringe" groups that advocate violence at abortion clinics. (Related Web site: View the ad)

Nancy Keenan, NARAL's president, said Friday that the controversy created by the earlier ad had become a "distraction" that interfered with getting out her group's message about Roberts -- that it opposes his confirmation because it believes he will support efforts to overturn previous court decisions legalizing abortion.

"We still feel that ad was accurate and important but it was too easily misinterpreted," Keenan said. That ad aired on CNN and some local TV stations in Maine and Rhode Island for just a few days earlier this month.

The new ad cites a memo Roberts wrote in 1981, when he was a lawyer in the Reagan administration Justice Department, referring to the "so-called" right to privacy. It also makes reference to a briefing paper Roberts wrote in 1991, while a deputy solicitor general, in which he stated he felt the landmark Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade "was wrongly decided." That decision made abortion legal nationwide.

NARAL's new ad also cites a USA TODAY editorial that asked whether Roberts' legal record "raises questions on whether he accepts the right to privacy."

When it released the earlier ad, NARAL said it planned to spend about $500,000 on television advertising related to the Roberts nomination. Keenan did not say how much NARAL plans to spend on the new ad, but said the spending is part of that $500,000 budget. The ad was to start airing on CNN nationwide today, and will also air on some local stations in Washington, D.C.

Abortion is a hot issue in the Roberts nomination because the justice he would replace, Sandra Day O'Connor, has often been a swing vote in favor of abortion rights.