Abortion Rights Groups Uneasy With Sotomayor

Nominee has no track record of upholding right to choose
By Jason Farago,  Newser Staff
Posted May 28, 2009 5:58 AM CDT
Abortion Rights Groups Uneasy With Sotomayor
Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor talks with President Barack Obama in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, May 26, 2009.   (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Advocates of abortion rights are getting jittery about Sonia Sotomayor, who, despite a decades-long paper trail, has never issued a ruling on the right to choose. Barack Obama's nominee to replace David Souter—himself famous for surprising his pro-life supporters by upholding Roe v. Wade—was raised Catholic and is a member of a group that helps young mothers. And in her only abortion-related decision, she came down on the side of the Bush administration, reports the Los Angeles Times.

In 2002, Sotomayor upheld a Bush program that required foreign groups receiving US funding to pledge that they would not promote abortion. Obama said during the campaign that he would make preserving Roe "a priority," but his spokesman said yesterday that the president had not asked Sotomayor about her views on abortion. "What we know about her we like, but I don't know the answer on abortion rights," said the head of the Feminist Majority Foundation. (More Sonia Sotomayor stories.)

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