Today's Washington Post reports on a memo regarding the landmark 1965 Supreme Court ruling that legalized the use of birth control by married couples under a right to privacy. According to the records, Roberts’ memo “to the attorney general on Dec. 11, 1981, summarized a lecture six years earlier by then-Solicitor General Erwin N. Griswold at Washington and Lee University, which touched on the same theme. Griswold's lecture, Roberts said, devotes a section to the so-called ‘right to privacy,’ arguing as we have that such an amorphous right is not to be found in the Constitution. He specifically criticizes Roe v. Wade.” [WashingtonPost, 8/3/2005]

“That John Roberts, President Bush’s nominee to the highest court in the nation, should refer disparagingly to our ‘so-called right to privacy’ is extremely troubling. The right to privacy is central to our American ideals of liberty and personal freedom, and it’s something most Americans cherish,” said Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America. “The more we learn about John Roberts’ judicial philosophy, the clearer it becomes that he is not the right choice for a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court. With each new piece of information the White House’s artfully constructed façade falls farther away, and the real John Roberts comes into clearer view – a career activist who would bring a clear ideological agenda to the Supreme Court. We need justices who will protect fundamental freedoms, not challenge them.”