WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama, treading carefully on the explosive issue of abortion and the Supreme Court, said Wednesday that he will choose a nominee who pays heed to women’s rights and privacy when interpreting the Constitution.
“That’s very important to me,” Obama said. Yet he insisted he will not make any potential nominee pass a “litmus test” on abortion rights.
Obama consulted Senate leaders from both parties at the White House as he moved toward choosing a replacement for Justice John Paul Stevens, who turned 90 on Tuesday and is retiring.
The White House says Obama is considering about 10 people and has begun conversations with candidates. A nominee is expected within the next few weeks.
Noting that the abortion debate has long divided the country, Obama underscored his belief in a right to privacy while attempting not to box himself in.
The Supreme Court declared in 1973 through its Roe vs. Wade decision that a woman has a constitutional right to an abortion, and close questioning on the issue has been a feature of Senate confirmation hearings since then. Federal courts have battled with the ramifications since the landmark decision, although the core ruling has gone untouched.
When asked whether he could nominate someone who did not support a woman’s right to choose, Obama said: “I am somebody who believes that women should have the ability to make often very difficult decisions about their own bodies and issues of reproduction.” As for his nominee, Obama said he would repeat the stand of other presidents by not judging candidates with a single-issue test.
“But I will say that I want somebody who is going to be interpreting our Constitution in a way that takes into account individual rights, and that includes women’s rights,” Obama said.
“And that’s going to be something that’s very important to me, because I think part of what our core constitutional values promote is the notion that individuals are protected in their privacy and their bodily integrity. And women are not exempt from that.”
Stevens is the leader of the liberals on the court, and the person Obama nominates is not expected to change the ideological balance among the justices. Still, Republicans can be expected to press the nominee on how future decisions might be affected by his or her views on abortion and other contentious issues.
Among those under consideration are federal appeals court judges Diane Wood, Merrick Garland and Sidney Thomas; former Georgia Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears; U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan; Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm; Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano; and Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow.
A second federal appellate judge in Chicago, Ann Claire Williams, has been added to the roster, the White House confirmed Wednesday. Williams is the first black to serve on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama wants a nominee who understands “how the law affects real people in the real world.” To that end, Williams has a somewhat nontraditional resume. Before she became a lawyer, Williams was a music and third-grade teacher in the inner-city public schools of Detroit.
Williams also brings another potential advantage to the table in an era when any Obama nomination risks being ground up in the partisan divide of Washington: She was first named to the bench in 1985 by Republican President Ronald Reagan.
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Tribune Co. contributed to this report
