John G. Roberts Jr. testified yesterday that he believes that the Constitution protects the right to privacy, the legal underpinning of the nation's landmark abortion law, but he refused to say whether he would vote to uphold Roe v. Wade if he is confirmed as chief justice of the United States.
In a day of sometimes testy exchanges with senators, Roberts distanced himself repeatedly from his conservative writings as a young legal adviser to President
Ronald Reagan, including a memo in which he had disparaged privacy as "amorphous" and a "so-called right" not spelled out in the Constitution.
Democrats pressed him aggressively, seeking to elicit his views on abortion and a range of other volatile civil rights issues by reminding him of stances he had advocated in the past. But time and again throughout the first full day of questioning at his Senate confirmation hearing, Roberts refused to...
