Church Teacher at Center of Senate Fight

AUSTIN, Texas -- A Sunday school teacher who graduated among the top of her law school class but angered abortion rights advocates by wanting to make it harder for minors to terminate a pregnancy is at the center of the historic storm in the U.S. Senate over the future of the federal judiciary.

To President Bush and other supporters, Priscilla Owen is, in the president's words, "a woman of integrity ... known to be a fair and impartial judge who strives to interpret the law fairly."

To her opponents, the 50-year-old Texas Supreme Court justice is a "judicial activist ... (whose) record shows a bias in favor of government secrecy and business interests, and against the environment, victims of discrimination and medical malpractice," in the words of Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, the senior Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

With Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's decision this week to make Owen's nomination to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals the test case in a separation of powers struggle, she also stands to become at least a footnote and perhaps a chapter in the nation's history.