U.S. abortion rights group pulls anti-Roberts ad

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A leading U.S. abortion rights
advocacy group pulled a controversial television advertisement
on Thursday that accuses Supreme Court nominee John Roberts of
supporting an abortion clinic bomber and excusing violence.

NARAL Pro-Choice America withdrew the advertisement after
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter complained in
a letter that it was a blatantly unfair attack on Roberts for
his participation, as deputy solicitor general, in an abortion
clinic case.

President George W. Bush last month named the conservative
Roberts to succeed Sandra Day O’Connor on the U.S. Supreme
Court, which has been closely divided on such hot-button issues
as abortion, church-state separation and the death penalty.

Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican who supports abortion
rights, will preside over Roberts’ September confirmation
hearing.

“The NARAL television advertisement is blatantly untrue and
unfair in its assertions that: Supreme Court nominee John
Roberts filed Court briefs supporting violent fringe groups and
a convicted clinic bomber and America can’t afford a justice
whose ideology leads him to excuse violence against other
Americans,” Specter wrote.

The NARAL national advertising campaign, launched on
Monday, had been widely denounced by Roberts’ supporters.

Critics had ripped the ad for talking about a brief Roberts
wrote in connection with a 1993 Supreme Court ruling, but using
images from a clinic bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, years
after the ruling.

Responding to Specter, NARAL said in a letter it regrets
that many people had “misconstrued” an advertisement it said
was aimed at focusing attention on Roberts’ record.

“Unfortunately, the debate over that advertisement has
become a distraction from the serious discussion we hoped to
have with the American public,” NARAL president Nancy Keenan
said.

“Therefore, we are changing from our current advertisement
to one that examines Mr. Roberts’ record on several points,
including his advocacy for overturing Roe v. Wade,” Keenan
wrote.

The Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling gave women the
constitutional right to choose an abortion.

On Tuesday, abortion-rights groups mostly opposed to
Roberts urged the White House to release documents related to a
legal brief in which he argued that civil rights laws do not
protect women denied access to abortions by violent protests.