Rally and action to protest Roberts' nomination

Media Advisory
September 2nd, 2005
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Bay Area reproductive rights groups will protest John Roberts’ nomination to be Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court as congressional hearings about his confirmation loom. Group responsible for keeping Operation Rescue out of the Bay Area in the eighties will ask Senator Dianne Feinstein to pose their questions to Roberts and hold federal government officials accountable for appointing justices who will defend the rights of all, as well as demand justice for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Who: BACORR (Bay Area Coalition for Our Reproductive Rights)
What: Rally and action
When: Sept. 6th, 2005 at 5:30 pm
Where: Simultaneous actions at Senator Dianne Feinstein’s office at One Post Street, Suite 2450 in San Francisco and at the Oakland Federal Building, 14th and Jefferson Streets, downtown Oakland

BACORR, a clinic defense /reproductive rights organization, will host a rally and action on the first day of Senate confirmation hearings about the nomination of John Roberts to the U.S. Supreme Court. The group plans to present three questions to Senator Dianne Feinstein, stating that asking these questions would help Senator Feinstein clarify John Robert’s position on abortion and reproductive rights. There will be a simultaneous protest in the East Bay at the Oakland Federal Building. The protests will also connect the impending disaster for women, people of color, workers and our civil liberties if Roberts is confirmed with the disaster caused by the federal government's callus, racist and horrifying abandonment of poor people devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

“We believe that these questions will help end confusion over John Robert’s position on Roe v Wade and women’s reproductive rights in general” said Linci Comy, Executive Director of Women’s Choice Clinic in Oakland, and a founding member of BACORR. “We are happy that Dianne Feinstein recognizes that we cannot possibly go back to the days of illegal abortions. Taking our questions directly into the hearing room will go a long way to assuring us that she intends to represent her pro-reproductive rights constituents and not Democratic Party priorities, and ensures that our voice, and the memories of the millions of women who were killed from illegal abortions, are prioritized during the hearing. This is a critical moment and one that carries a tremendous amount of significance for her constituents.”

The questions that will be presented to Senator Feinstein and her staff, to be asked by the Senator in the hearings, include:
1. Judge Roberts, you stated that “privacy is an amorphous right” not necessarily found in the constitution. Many rights, including the right to own a home or secure private property, are guaranteed by the right to privacy. Where do you draw the line?
2. Judge Roberts, millions of women have died when abortion was illegal. Often these women had families and were trying to create a sustainable living situation for their existing children. Mr. Roberts, in explaining that abortion is not a right, what would you say to the families of women who died from illegal abortions?
3. Judge Roberts, what will you do to protect and expand women’s rights s to bear children or not, according to the dictates of the woman’s soul and reason?

The group will also rally at the Oakland Federal Building, across from the Women’s Choice Clinic at 540 14th Street, in downtown Oakland.

The Bay Area Coalition for Our Reproductive Rights (BACORR), formed in the mid-1980s, is committed to strengthening access to family planning clinics for all women. BACORR successfully stopped Operation Rescue from closing local clinics during the height of anti-choice violence more than twenty years ago, and has re-formed due to a spate of recent anti-choice activity in California, long considered a “safe” state for reproductive rights.
For more questions, contact: Lauren Enteen at 415-310-0643 or 415-282-5250