(ABP) -- When the Supreme Court begins its new term Oct. 5, much of the attention will be on its newest member, Justice Sonia Sotomayor. But, for most conservatives, little in either Sotomayor's record as a federal judge or her confirmation testimony will alter their expectation that her judicial philosophy will track along a liberal trajectory.

But then there’s now-retired Justice David Souter -- the nominee of President Bush the elder whose reflexive liberalism confounded the conservatives who elected Bush, and the justice whom Sotomayor replaced. Might there exist a slight possibility that the court’s third woman and first Latina could stray from the liberal orthodoxy her detractors and supporters both expect?

Shortly after President Obama nominated her, a handful of stalwart abortion-rights supporters expressed uncertainty about the pick. Not fully convinced that Sotomayor was on her side, Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, released a guarded statement shortly after the justice was nominated in which she asked members of the Senate Judiciary Committee to fully “engage” Sotomayor on her “commitment to the principle of Roe v. Wade” and that “anything less threatens not only a woman’s constitutional rights, but her life and health.”

Northup hoped Sotomayor’s “understanding of the real-life experiences of women” gleaned from “growing up in a single-parent household with limited means” underscored her commitment to choice.

At first blush, the Left’s consternation seemed manufactured and part of a broader political strategy aimed at confusing some aspects of the nominee’s record. After all, it seemed somewhat mystifying that a nominee appointed by a President Obama -- arguably the most pro-choice White House occupant in the history of the Republic -- could draw any reaction other than universal elation from all corridors of the American Left.

But those who are singularly focused on increasing access to abortion clearly would have preferred the president nominate someone with an airtight record on choice. With Sotomayor, though, they were forced to support a nominee who had never issued an opinion in a case that dealt directly with the principles of Roe v. Wade.

Was their concern merited? Perhaps.

There is the matter of her religion. She is now the sixth Catholic seated on the high court. That, as a matter of faith, renders her inexorably linked to the court’s conservative bloc -- Chief Justice Roberts and Associate Justices Alito, Kennedy, Scalia and Thomas. All are Catholics.

And, because of a single opinion she wrote while serving on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, some of the most strident abortion-rights supporters (albeit a small minority) continue to view Sotomayor with skepticism.

Writing in 2002, she ruled against a group that challenged the Bush Administration’s adherence to the so-called “Mexico City Policy,” which effectively blocked foreign aid for international family-planning groups that performed abortions or supported abortion rights. In the case, the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy’s attorneys argued the George W. Bush administration’s policy violated the group’s First Amendment, due-process and equal-protection rights.

But, citing the 2nd Circuit’s prior decision in a lawsuit that challenged the Reagan administration’s use of the same policy, Sotomayor rebuffed the First Amendment claim outright. And she rejected the due-process claim based on lack of standing and held that due-process violations were reserved for individuals, not groups.

In the end, on the plaintiff’s equal-protection claim, she held that the federal government was free to favor the anti-abortion position over the pro-choice position when determining how to spend the taxpayers’ money.

So, as the woman who said numerous times that who she is will impact her decisions and whose nomination was baptized in empathy prepares to begin her first term, is it possible that her ethnicity and empathy could actually cut against the Left?

For instance, might she want to curb the racial injustice that exists on the abortion table? Hispanic women are twice as likely as white women to end their pregnancies in abortion.

Could she empathize with those women -- and, more importantly, those they abort who will never have the opportunity to grow up and overcome great odds in order to achieve great things?

We, as with her predecesor, will have to wait and see.

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David Sanders is a columnist for Stephens Media in Little Rock, Ark., and the producer and host of the Arkansas Educational Television Network's "Unconventional Wisdom." 

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