U.S. Catholics Urge Senate to End Pro-Abortion Litmus Test

The campaign invites Catholics to send an e-mail or postcard to their senators telling them that support for Roe v. Wade should not be used as a litmus test for judicial nominees.

"Abortion advocacy groups have pledged to spend $10 million dollars every year to see that only judges who promise to endorse Roe are confirmed," said Cathy Cleaver Ruse, spokeswoman for the U.S. bishops' Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities.

Cardinal William Keeler wrote to all U.S. senators in January to urge them not to use a pro-abortion litmus test for nominees. "By any measure," he said, "support for the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision is an impoverished standard for assessing judicial ability."

Ruse added: "No senator should make a litmus test out of what Justice Blackmun's former law clerk Edward Lazarus calls 'one of the most intellectually suspect constitutional decisions of the modern era.'"