Birmingham, AL Post-Herald - NARAL Launches Advertisement Attacking Supreme Court Nominee Roberts

August 9, 2005
By JAMES W. BROSNAN
BIRMINGHAM POST-HERALD

WASHINGTON Emily Lyons knew the plane rides to and from Birmingham would leave her sore for days. But the survivor of the 1998 bombing of a Birmingham abortion clinic thought it was necessary to come to the U.S. capital to oppose John Roberts for the U.S. Supreme Court.
"I haven't turned down any opportunity to get the story out," said the former nurse at the New Woman All Women Health Care clinic in Birmingham, which was bombed by Eric Rudolph. Lyons was maimed and a police officer killed in the bombing.

"This isn't a time to say no," she said.

Lyons, 49, is featured in an anti-Roberts ad that the National Abortion Rights Action League unveiled Monday at a Washington press conference.

The ad, which debuts Wednesday on cable TV news channels, is a sharp escalation in the intensity of the fight over Roberts' nomination and was denounced by his supporters as dishonest and over-the-top.

The ad criticizes Roberts for opposing the use of civil rights laws to restrain the activities of abortion protesters in 1992. Roberts took that position as deputy solicitor general and argued before the Supreme Court in a case involving protesters at an Alexandria, Va., clinic. At least one of the protesters had been convicted in bombings at Maryland clinics in the '80s.

The NARAL ad begins by showing footage of the bomb damage at the Birmingham abortion clinic and Lyons in a wheelchair. Lyons was standing outside the clinic Jan. 29, 1998, when the bomb went off. She never worked again as a nurse and recently underwent her 21st operation related to her bombing injuries.

"When a bomb ripped through my clinic, I almost lost my life. I will never be the same," Lyons said in the commercial. A narrator then states that Roberts filed court briefs "supporting violent fringe groups and a convicted clinic bomber."

In the commercial, Lyons said, "I'm determined to stop this violence, so I'm speaking out."

The ad concludes with the narrator stating, "America can't afford a justice whose ideology leads him to excuse violence against other Americans."

Roberts supporters said the ad unfairly attempts to link him to criminals and bombers when he was simply arguing a point of law.

Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman said, "NARAL has shown how far they will go to slander a good man for political gain."

The White House noted that as a lawyer in the White House counsel's office in 1986, Roberts helped draft a memo firmly rejecting the idea of presidential pardons for abortion clinic bombers.

Roberts supporters said the NARAL ad shows the desperation of his opponents.

"This clearly is a smear campaign designed to ignore the facts and make assertions that are simply untrue," said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice.

Sekulow also represented the clinic protesters in the case and was one of the lawyers whom the White House consulted with on a replacement for O'Connor.

Lyons noted that Operations Rescue is supporting Roberts' nomination on its Web site and that another case involving use of the racketeering laws against abortion protesters will be heard by the Supreme Court in its next term.

"I am frightened by the prospect of John Roberts serving a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court," she said. "His record demonstrates a commitment to siding with the very groups that threatened, intimidated and bombed women's health clinics."