Anti-Roberts ad rapped, withdrawn

WASHINGTON -- A prominent abortion-rights group pulled a television advertisement last night that it was airing in opposition to Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr., hours after the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee called for the ad campaign to be canceled.

NARAL Pro-Choice America's ad, which began airing Wednesday on national cable stations and on broadcast outlets in Maine and Rhode Island, accused Roberts of condoning violence when he argued that a Reconstruction-era anti- discrimination law shouldn't apply when clinics ask courts for injunctions to prevent demonstrations or blockades.

It was condemned yesterday by chairman Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican who supports abortion rights, who said Roberts did nothing wrong in arguing that the abortion-rights movement should not use a law from the 1800s intended to protect freed slaves to stop opposition blockades of abortion clinics.

Arguing that position, Specter wrote, does not amount to ''supporting violent fringe groups," as the ad claimed. He called the accusations ''blatantly untrue and unfair" and harmful to the ''pro-choice cause."

''When NARAL puts on such an advertisement, in my opinion it undercuts its credibility and injures the pro-choice cause," Specter wrote to Nancy Keenan, NARAL's president. ''The NARAL television advertisement is blatantly untrue and unfair. . . . In any event, advertisements like the NARAL TV commercial against Judge Roberts should not be countenanced in order to avoid the possibility of similar advertising to sully and denigrate the confirmation process."

Keenan issued a response last night defending the ad's accuracy, but saying the group decided to pull it in favor of another ad, in deference to Specter's concerns.

''The debate over that advertisement has become a distraction from the serious discussion we hoped to have with the American public," Keenan wrote. ''Therefore, we are changing from that advertisement to one that examines Mr. Roberts' record on several points, including his advocacy for overturning Roe v. Wade, his statement questioning the right to privacy, and his arguments against using a federal civil rights law to protect women and their doctors and nurses from those who use blockades and intimidation."

NARAL's contested 30-second ad had included a picture of Roberts; footage of a deadly abortion clinic bombing in Birmingham, Ala.; and Emily Lyons, a clinic nurse critically wounded in the bombing, describing how it ruined her life. The ad is expected to air on some stations through today but will be off the air by tomorrow.

''Supreme Court nominee John Roberts filed court briefs supporting violent fringe groups and a convicted clinic bomber," the voice-over says. ''America can't afford a justice whose ideology leads him to excuse violence against other Americans."

The intervention by Specter, who will preside over Roberts's confirmation hearings next month, indicates the growing significance of the abortion issue in Roberts's nomination. NARAL and other abortion-rights groups are among a handful that oppose Roberts; they fear that if Roberts reaches the high court, he would roll back rights that are constitutionally protected under current precedents.

Several Democratic senators said they would vote against Roberts if he does not indicate he believes in a ''right to privacy" that was the underpinning of the 1973 Roe v. Wade opinion establishing a constitutional right to abortion. Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California, vowed Wednesday to use ''all the parliamentary rules I have as a senator" to block Roberts's nomination if he doesn't support abortion rights.

''I need to know exactly where he stands, and I need to know whether he would fight to protect the rights and freedoms of the American people," Boxer said.

Yesterday, Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican on the judiciary committee, said it would be inappropriate to ask Roberts about his legal views on abortion. A challenge to a New Hampshire abortion-notification law is on the high court's fall docket, and stating a definitive opinion on the Roe case before hearing evidence in that case could force Roberts to recuse himself, Cornyn said.

''Roe is not only likely to come before the court during Judge Roberts's tenure, it is already there," he said. ''Justices are not politicians. They don't run on a political platform, and senators should not ask them to do so."

Roberts has given conflicting signals on the case throughout the years. As a legal aide in the Reagan administration, he referred to it as the ''so-called" right to abortion in an internal memo. In a brief signed as principal deputy solicitor general under President George H. W. Bush, he wrote that Roe v. Wade ''was wrongly decided and should be overruled."

But Roberts later said he was merely stating administration policy and not necessarily his own opinion. Two years ago, in 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." However, unlike in his current job, the Supreme Court has the power to change that precedent.

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