Fables of the Strict Constructionist
OK, so it's only 30 some odd minutes after the President announced his candidate to replace Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court--John G. Roberts--and both David Brooks and Mark Shields were gushing over him on PBS's NewsHour (I still have a hard time not calling it MacNeil/Lehrer), with the liberal Shields pronouncing him pretty much automatically "confirmable." And he certainly looks like everybody's All-American (he was captain of his high school football team), up-from-the-bootstraps (he worked in a steel mill to put himself through school), all-around winner (with a pretty, blonde wife in bright Republican pink). But here's a little tidbit from a report by the Alliance for Justice in opposition to Roberts' nomination to the D.C. Court of Appeals (in PDF format, via Daily Kos; bolding mine):

In two cases, Roberts took positions hostile to women's reproductive rights. He was a co-author of the government's brief in Rust v. Sullivan,10 the case in which the Supreme Court upheld newly revised Title X regulations that prohibited U.S. family planning programs receiving federal aid from giving any abortion-related counseling or other services. The provision barred such clinics not only from providing abortions, but also from "counseling clients about abortion" or even "referring them to facilities that provide abortions."11 Roberts' brief argued that the regulation gagging the government-financed programs was necessary to fulfill Congress' intent not to fund abortions through these programs, despite the fact that several members of Congress, including sponsors of the amendment dealing with abortion, disavowed this position and that the Department of Health and Human Services' had not previously interpreted the provision in such a rigid and restrictive manner.12 Moreover, Roberts argued, even though the case did not implicate Roe v. Wade, that "[w]e continue to believe that Roe was wrongly decided and should be overruled… The Court's conclusion in Roe that there is a fundamental right to an abortion… finds no support in the text, structure, or history of the Constitution."13 10 500 U.S. 173 (1991). 11 Title X, 42 U.S.C. 300, Section 1008. 12 A 1978 memorandum from the Department of Health and Human Services stated that, “This office has traditionally taken the view that… the provision of information concerning abortion services, mere referral of an individual to another provider of services for an abortion, and the collection of statistical data and information regarding abortion are not considered to be proscribed by [the regulation at issue].” Memorandum from Carol C. Conrad, Office of General Counsel, Dep’t of Health, Education & Welfare, to Elsie Sullivan, Ass’t for Information and Education, Office of Family Planning, BCHS (April 14, 1978). 13 Brief for the Respondent at 13, Rust v. Sullivan, 500 U.S. 173 (1991) (Nos. 89-1391, 1392).