WASHINGTON — Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor sidestepped questions on abortion, gun rights and gay rights Wednesday -- including whether a state could forbid aborting a 38-week-old fetus -- leaving both conservative and liberal activists troubled.
Sotomayor, relying on her long judicial record, gave detailed explanations of her court decisions but steadfastly refused to engage Republicans who were interested in her views on abortion, the 2nd Amendment and same-sex marriage. She dismissed as "abstract" questions of whether a state could limit late-term abortions or whether advances in medical care for premature babies could curb the period of time when abortion is legal.
She also said she could not venture a view on whether the Constitution's "right to bear arms" puts limits on state and municipal guns laws, and she refused to say whether the court could strike down a state's ban on same-sex marriage.
President Obama's nominee followed the pattern set over the last two decades by high court nominees, who have sat through hours of questioning but refused to talk about their thinking on controversial subjects. The result has been that senators and the public learn surprisingly little about the ideas and views a nominee will bring to a lifetime seat on the court.
On abortion, Sotomayor said she saw Roe vs. Wade as "settled law," a phrase used by earlier Republican nominees. She also noted the court had said states could not put an "undue burden" on pregnant women who sought an abortion before a fetus reached "viability," meaning the baby could live on its own.
But beyond that, she demurred.
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla), an obstetrician and fierce opponent of abortion, asked about a woman who was 38 weeks pregnant and discovered the fetus had a "small spina bifida sac . . . on the lower part of the back." He asked: "Would it be legal in this country to terminate that child's life?"
"I can't answer that question in the abstract," Sotomayor said. She said she would need to look at the state's law to see whether abortions of viable babies were prohibited. "The question is: Is the state regulation regulating what a woman does an undue burden?" She added that she "probably couldn't opine" on whether such an abortion could be prohibited.
Since the Roe ruling in 1973, the Supreme Court has suggested that late-term abortions could be banned, so long as there were exceptions to protect the life or health of the mother. But it has not ruled squarely on such a prohibition.
