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Interview With Harriet Miers' Pastor

By Jeralyn, Section Harriet Miers
Posted on Tue Oct 04, 2005 at 11:35:29 AM EST
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Here's an interview with Pastor Ron Key, who until a few weeks ago, was Ms. Miers' pastor at the Valley View Christian Church in Dallas. The radio host conducting the interview says it's proof that Ms. Miers is anti-abortion, but the interview doesn't bear that out.

It shows she's very faith based, and that her Church is pro-life and against gay marriages. But, Pastor Key admits he has not talked to her about those issues. On the other hand, he says she is the same kind of person as Priscilla Owen and that they are good friends.

I don't think anyone really doubts that Ms. Miers is pro-life, but if she has gone through her career not publicly stating her view, maybe she will not let her personal views affect her rulings as a Judge. I'm also getting tired of the abortion debate. It's not the only important issue. I'm far more concerned with her position on criminal justice and civil liberties issues.

Also, on the much reported American Bar referendum she sponsored to change the ABA's pro-choice policy, keep in mind that she was not trying to have the ABA take a pro-life position. Initially, it seems she wanted the organization to change its public position on abortion from one of pro-choice to one of neutrality. When that failed, she argued that ABA leaders had made the policy without putting it to a vote of ABA members. She sought a referendum to put the matter of whether the ABA should be neutral or pro-choice to the full membership. [The Washington Times, August 11, 1993; Legal Intelligencer, February 24, 1993,August 15, 1994]

I have not seen any direct quote attributed to Ms. Miers in which she publicly states she is personally pro-life or believes Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided.

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    • Interview With Harriet Miers' Pastor | 13 comments (13 topical)
    Re: Interview With Harriet Miers' Pastor (none / 0) (#1)
    by Quaker in a Basement on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:40 PM EST
    maybe she will not let her personal views affect her rulings as a Judge
    That's really the question, isn't it? I think it would be far better for the Senate to know whether her personal views will affect her rulings.
    I'm also getting tired of the abortion debate. It's not the only important issue.
    You're right. It's not the only issue, but it's a highly emotional and contentious one. Examining a prospective Justice's views on this issue provides some insight into the question of how personal views will affect rulings.

    Re: Interview With Harriet Miers' Pastor (none / 0) (#2)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:40 PM EST
    I would guess that most people think they are more likely to need an abortion/know someone who will need an abortion than to land in court without civil liberties. If Miers will treat Roe vs. Wade as settled law than she won't vote to overturn it. If she's willing to revisit it, of course her personal views will enter in and she will vote to outlaw it. I expect her personal views will also color her legal reasoning in the many abortion restriction cases on which she'll rule.

    Re: Interview With Harriet Miers' Pastor (none / 0) (#3)
    by squeaky on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:40 PM EST
    Perhaps Roe v Wade is a non issue because we are no longer in the year 1973. Available drugs make abortion obsolete in most cases. From Sunday's NYT:
    ...But such speculation overlooks a paradox in the abortion wars: while combatants focus on the law, technology is already changing the future of abortion, with or without the Supreme Court. Even if the court restricts or eliminates the right to an abortion, the often-raised specter of a return to back-alley abortions is not likely to be realized, said Dr. Beverly Winikoff, president of Gynuity Health Services, a nonprofit group that supports access to abortion. "The conditions that existed before 1973 were much different than what they are in 2005," she said. "We have better antibiotics now and better surgical treatments." But no change is bigger than the advent of an inexpensive drug called misoprostol, which the federal Food and Drug Administration approved for treatment of ulcers in 1988, but which has been used in millions of self-administered abortions worldwide. If the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, freeing states to ban abortion, this common prescription drug, often known by the brand name Cytotec, could emerge as a cheap, relatively safe alternative to the practices that proliferated before Roe.
    NYT

    Re: Interview With Harriet Miers' Pastor (none / 0) (#4)
    by esmense on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:40 PM EST
    Only someone very naive would think that making abortion illegal -- which has nothing at all to do with ending abortion -- has nothing to do with justice and civil liberties. If you were the parent of a 12 year old daughter who was raped by a 19 year old neighbor, would you prefer an America where you could both openly protect your daughter's health and future with a safe, legal abortion AND bring her rapist to justice, or, one where both "crimes" are likely to be routinely covered up by fear and shame? If you were abusing your 12 year old daughter, would you prefer an America where illegal abortion providers who can help you hide the consequences of your abuse are easily available, but, for your daughter, access to the kind of open, legal reproductive health care that could expose your abuse is not? If these examples seem melodramatic, let me tell you -- both are based on the stories of patients I encountered as an examining room nurse for an ob/gyn in the first few months after Reagan signed the law legalizing abortion in California -- when it finally started to become possible for women and families to speak openly about such things. You can't push abortion into the back alleys without pushing our recent openness about the problems of rape, incest and other forms of abuse back there with it. And you can't take away a woman's reproductive rights without threatening a whole host of other rights and freedoms. I'm tired of our abortion debate too. Because it is a totally dishonest one.

    Re: Interview With Harriet Miers' Pastor (none / 0) (#5)
    by Sailor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:40 PM EST
    Squeaky, I beg to disagree. The RW doesn't want the drugs to be available, either before or after sex, much less conception. Thye have gone so far as to make it illegal for Dr's around the world (and in the US) to even TELL folks of the alternatives. But the main reason to reject miers for the supremes is that she has ZERO experience as a judge. Is the Supreme Court really the place we want 'on the job training?' I wouldn't endorse Jeralyn, TChris or LNILR for the SC, why would anyone endorse miers for it?

    Re: Interview With Harriet Miers' Pastor (none / 0) (#6)
    by jimcee on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:40 PM EST
    I would think that there would be less debate about what Ms Mier's views on abortion were than the fact that she was George W Bush's personal council and the possible next supreme court justice. Go figure.

    Re: Interview With Harriet Miers' Pastor (none / 0) (#7)
    by Steven Sanderson on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:40 PM EST
    Now's not the time to be tiring of the abortion debate. Abortion is just the rallying call of the deeper, sinister, reactionary social war that the extreme-right has planned to shape America into their warped sense of a pious nation. The extremists on the right aren't content to insert their beliefs into women's doctor/patient relationship just for abortion only, they also intrude because they consider contraception to be abortion. Sex itself is another focus of attack because sex outside of marriage is a big no-no to these people. Privacy in one's own home is anathema to the self-righteous, who knows what god defying/god defiling acts are hidden by the shield of privacy. End abortion: check. End contraception: check. End extramarital, non-procreative sex: check. Next: take women out of the workplace and put them back in the home, severely punish unwed mothers and their child, and a myriad of other atrocities. But, most of all, the extreme right will thump their bibles and beat their breasts in classic agonistic display.

    Re: Interview With Harriet Miers' Pastor (none / 0) (#8)
    by squeaky on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:40 PM EST
    Sailor- I agree Roe v Wade is a symbolic struggle. Give them an inch and they will take a mile. I am not so convinced that having experience as a judge makes for a better SC justice.
    There have been an enormous number of studies, Epstein said, showing that people with diverse career experiences bring different things to the table. And there is every reason to believe that would be true of the Supreme Court as well. Epstein recalled Rehnquist in a speech talking about the importance of nominees with private law practice experience. "He was thinking about people like Louis Brandeis and Powell," she said. "They brought a real-world perspective to the court. This Supreme Court, some critics say, is like running little law schools." Powell's lack of prior judicial experience and wealth of private practice experience, she suggested, may well have contributed to his position as the key swing vote during his years on the high court. "He probably hadn't formed many opinions on a lot of key issues because he wasn't an appellate judge and he hadn't been a government lawyer working in the solicitor general's office and taking the president's view of a lot of social issues," she explained.
    link Often when one 'knows' a subject there is some kind of overdetermination that can stifle creative thinking or thinking out of the box. Knowing something too well is like naming it, it becomes dead.

    Re: Interview With Harriet Miers' Pastor (none / 0) (#9)
    by BigTex on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:41 PM EST
    The RW doesn't want the drugs to be available, either before or after sex, much less conception.
    That is true for the farthest right, but in no way represents the rank in file right wing. Plenty of people on the right want Roe gone, but don't want to see that coupled with an end of contraception. Maybe it's because they use contraception. Maybe it's because they realise that there needs to be some measure of birth control available. Maybe it is because Pope John Paul II wrote in an encyclical that contraception was allowable in very limited circumstances and they think they are in one of those circumstances. But to deal with abortion, why is this even an issue. Even if Roberts and Meyers (if confirmes) turn out so conservative that they make Thomas look like a flaming liberal, the Court still has 5 votes to keep Roe. Roe will not be in jeopardy untill Stevens, Bryer, Ginsburg, Souter, or Kennedy step down. Those 5 all have consistently said that they support Roe. Now, the edges may frey, if Kennedy maintains his position that a state can ban partial birth abortions, but the core Roe decision is not in danger at all. Liberals should be the happiest of all with partial birth abortion becoming illegal. It is an expansion of etherial rights to privacy. Just as the Court held that privacy expanded to protect abortions, it has expanded to give rights to a viable fetus. This is nothing more than the core liberal mindset of privacy being expanded.

    Re: Interview With Harriet Miers' Pastor (none / 0) (#10)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:41 PM EST
    deleted, please read the comment rules. You may not reprint articles in the comments. You can link using html format and quote a few lines to make your point.

    Re: Interview With Harriet Miers' Pastor (none / 0) (#11)
    by Sailor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:42 PM EST
    Big Tex, I don't see any moderate right wing anymore, I see a vicious extremism and a bunch of folks going along with it. Your posts deserve a more complete response and I'll have more for you tomorrow, It's just too darn late tonight;-) (BTW, I find myself missing SOME of the apostrophes from your earlier posts;-)

    Re: Interview With Harriet Miers' Pastor (none / 0) (#12)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:42 PM EST
    You're "getting tired of the abortion debate"? That's not surprising, since it is the Official Red Herring of the blow-it-up/tear-it-up for profit maladministration. Focus on a social issue -- ignore the rampant crony corruption that has reversed OVER 600 environmental laws and rules in the last five years. 2005 ongoing report on Bush Admin. Rule Changes The R Congress just turned the Endangered Species Act into a rubberstamp for extinction. In late 2004, Bush signed the Marine Mammals Protection Act into oblivion. The filling of rivers by coal company waste, which is totally illegal, continues to the point that hundreds of rivers have been destroyed. Last year was the highest rainforest destruction in recorded history. The shrinking polar ice cap will disappear for the first time in millions of years. And the Bush response?

    Re: Interview With Harriet Miers' Pastor (none / 0) (#13)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:42 PM EST
    (dialtone)(sound of bush-crony cash registers)

    Interview With Harriet Miers' Pastor | 13 comments (13 topical)