Letter: Sotomayor confirmation offers electoral lessons

• Sotomayor testifies

File Photo: Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington before the Senate Judiciary Committee. (Associated press)

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Sonia Sotomayor is the 111th Supreme Court justice. She is the first-ever judges of Hispanic descent. The Senate confirmation vote was 68-31, with all the “no” votes from Republicans. Justice Sotomayor is the third woman to serve on the Supreme Court following Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. Sonia Sotomayor was confirmed in early September.

The Senate hearings did little to further the public’s understanding of what sort of justice she would be. I consider myself as being very pro-life. One of the key issues Supreme Court justices are confronted with is the sanctity of life.

Sonia Sotomayor previously served as a long-time member of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (PRLDEF), a group that advocates for extreme abortion rights. The PRLDEF has advocated pro-abortion legal positions in every court brief it ever filed in every case where abortion was an issue. She dodged the issue when questioned in this regard, although as a PRLDEF board member she advocated for unrestricted abortion rights in every abortion case where it had filed a brief.

Sotomayor is deeply pro-abortion and covered up her real depth of judicial worldview. Justice Sotomayor will be much more pro-abortion than David Souter, the justice she replaced. Souter upheld a state law requiring the parental consent for most abortions of minors. Sotomayor’s PRLDEF has vehemently opposed both parental consent and parental notification laws.

There are some warning signs on other issues. When senators pressed Sotomayor hard on whether she would follow the dangerous reasoning of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, who believes the legal ideas of foreign courts can and should influence how the U.S. Supreme Court interprets its own Constitution, Sotomayor quoted Justice Ginsberg’s idea that foreign law can be influential.

I believe there are many prudent lessons to learn from the Sotomayor confirmation. It is very clear that national elections have consequences. The person elected president chooses whom to nominate to the Supreme Court, and the senators have the power of confirmation.

As voters we have the responsibility to understand that when we vote, we should count the consequences because we will have to live with them in many areas for many years.

Tags: opinion, letters, sotomayor, abortion