During a Democratic primary debate on Nov. 15, 2007, Obama was asked whether he would insist that any nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court supported abortion rights for women:
_ "I would not appoint somebody who doesn't believe in the right to privacy. ... I taught constitutional law for 10 years, and when you look at what makes a great Supreme Court justice, it's not just the particular issue and how they ruled. But it's their conception of the court. And part of the role of the court is that it is going to protect people who may be vulnerable in the political process, the outsider, the minority, those who are vulnerable, those who don't have a lot of clout. ... Sometimes we're only looking at academics or people who've been in the courts. If we can find people who have life experience, and they understand what it means to be on the outside, what it means to have the system not work for them, that's the kind of person I want on the Supreme Court."