NARAL airs new TV ad blasting Roberts

WASHINGTON -- Two weeks after pulling its first ad under heavy criticism, a prominent abortion rights group launched a new television campaign yesterday against Judge John G. Roberts Jr.'s nomination to the Supreme Court, drawing from his record as a White House lawyer to question his belief in the right to privacy, the underpinning of the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion.

The new 30-second ad from NARAL Pro-Choice America, airing nationally on CNN and on local stations in Washington, quotes memos and legal briefs signed by Roberts when he was a young attorney in the Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations. The ad concludes that Roberts's record ''raises questions on whether he accepts the right to privacy" and declares, ''There's just too much at stake to let John Roberts become a decisive vote on the Supreme Court."

The spot shuns the more inflammatory rhetoric of NARAL's first ad, which was based on some of Roberts's writings from the 1990s. It accused Roberts of ''supporting violent fringe groups and a convicted clinic bomber" for arguing that a Reconstruction-era antidiscrimination law does not apply when abortion clinics ask courts to stop right-to-life demonstrations and human blockades.

NARAL said it stands by the accuracy of that ad, but spiked it when it became ''a distraction" from the debate over Roberts's record on abortion rights. That decision came hours after Senate Judiciary chairman Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican who is an abortion rights ally, called for them to stop the ad.

Nancy Keenan, NARAL's president, said the controversy won't diminish the current ad's message. She said she senses ''building momentum" to defeat Roberts, despite ''conventional wisdom" that he is headed for easy Senate confirmation next month.

''We have fought too long and too hard to have the fundamental right to privacy overturned," Keenan said. ''It's the right campaign, and it's the right issues. We know what's at stake. The American people want these issues addressed."

As evidence of growing opposition against Roberts, Keenan cited recent announcements by groups such as People for the American Way and the Human Rights Campaign. Keenan also noted that Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat and the only woman on the Judiciary Committee, said in a speech Wednesday that ''it would be very difficult for me to vote to confirm" a nominee who opposes abortion rights.

The White House blasted the NARAL ad yesterday, accusing the group of manipulating bits of Roberts's record to fit its agenda. Steve Schmidt, a White House spokesman, said the first ad diminished NARAL's stature, and the current one ''continues in that tradition."

''NARAL discredited itself with its first ad run during the nominating process, which will go down in the annals of political advertising as one of the most dishonest and rancid ads ever run," he said.

The first ad quotes a brief Roberts signed as principal deputy solicitor general under President George H. W. Bush, in which he wrote that the Roe v. Wade decision establishing abortion rights ''was wrongly decided and should be overruled." As a Reagan administration lawyer a decade earlier, Roberts referred to the ''so-called right to privacy" in an internal memo, a phrase suggesting he doesn't believe in it, according to abortion rights activists. That right was the foundation for the Roe v. Wade ruling in 1973.

Nonetheless, Roberts's personal opinion on the constitutional status of abortion remains unclear. Groups that support his nomination argue that he should not be forced to spell out his beliefs on any particular case because he may have to consider similar issues as a justice, and Roberts can't be seen as prejudging those cases.

In reference to the brief he signed under the first President Bush, Roberts later said he was stating administration policy, not necessarily his own opinion. In 2003 Senate confirmation hearings for his current seat on the federal appeals court for Washington, he called the Roe decision ''the settled law of the land," but the Supreme Court has the power to overturn precedents.

The NARAL ad is part of a broader effort to push the Senate to reject Roberts. Tonight, NARAL is organizing about 200 house parties to organize lobbying campaigns around the country, and an anti-Roberts ad will appear in tomorrow's Washington Post, Keenan said.

Connie Mackey, vice president for government relations at the conservative Family Research Council, said focusing on abortion won't help liberals defeat a Supreme Court candidate like Roberts, who is widely respected.

''There's so much more to this particular nominee," Mackey said. ''They just can't seem to break loose of the pro-abortion agenda."

Rick Klein can be reached at rklein@globe.com.