Aiming For Prop 8 Judge, Blogger Accidentally Argues Women Judges Should Not Hear Abortion Cases

Another right-wing blogger has taken a stab at arguing that Judge Vaughn Walker should have been disqualified from the California same-sex marriage case because he is a gay man. But the post accidentally showed another reason why this argument has been deemed meritless and "ridiculous" by judicial ethics experts.

The blogger (presumably accidentally) argues that not only should Walker be disqualified from this case, but women judges must be disqualified from cases involving abortion.

Last night, as part of a series of National Review Online posts calling for Walker's disqualification, Matthew Franck hyped a guest post on the Patterico's Pontifications blog attacking Walker. The Patterico post, by Aaron Worthing, detailed an email exchange Worthing had had with San Francisco Chronicle reporter Bob Egelko about Walker.

In response to Egelko's remark that Walker “has no more of a conflict than a female judge, or a devoutly Catholic male judge, ruling on the right to abortion,” Worthing stated: "[N]otice he also misses the issue of having your legal rights on the docket. A catholic male judge might have a certain preferred outcome in an abortion case, but he is not ruling on his personal rights."

Worthing responded to Egelko's analogy about a “devoutly Catholic male judge” ruling on abortion, but not about a “female judge” ruling on that issue.

I don't know why Worthing did not respond to the point about a “female judge,” but a woman of childbearing age certainly has her own “legal rights on the docket” when ruling on abortion restrictions, and by the logic of Walker opponents, cannot hear such cases.

As we've already shown, by the logic of Walker's opponents, straight judges who are married or may someday want to get married must be disqualified from same-sex marriage cases. But now it's apparent that, in addition, female judges are disqualified from hearing abortion cases.

Or perhaps the real answer is that there are no grounds to disqualify Walker from the Proposition 8 case.