WASHINGTON – President Bush’s nominee to the Supreme Court, Judge John Roberts Jr., made the rounds on Capitol Hill yesterday even as abortion rights and women’s organizations gathered on the lawn outside to rail against him.

After a private breakfast meeting with Mr. Bush at the White House, Judge Roberts traveled to the Senate, where he held discussions with leaders from both parties.

Republican senators continued to predict easy confirmation. “We intend to have a respectful process here and confirm you before the first Monday in October,” Senator McConnell of Kentucky said.

The chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Specter of Pennsylvania, said the first Supreme Court confirmation hearings in a decade would get under way in September. “I think that they will be extensive hearings, because there will be many questions which will be raised,” Mr. Specter said. “But based on Judge Roberts’s qualifications, my instinct is that he’ll have the answers.”

Senator Schumer said he believes Senate Democrats are approaching the nomination with an open mind. “I’ve talked to most of my colleagues already, between last night and this morning, and I don’t think anyone’s made up his or her mind,” said the senator, who is scheduled to meet with Judge Roberts today.

No Democratic senator voiced overt opposition to the nomination. Asked if a filibuster might be mounted against Judge Roberts, Senator Feinstein of California said, “No, not at this time.”

However, liberal groups, particularly those involved with women’s issues, described Judge Roberts in apocalyptic terms.

“We’re here to let it be known that supporters of women’s rights and human rights and civil rights know who John G. Roberts is, and we know that he would be a disaster for us,” the president of the National Organization of Women, Kim Gandy, said. “John G. Roberts may look mild-mannered, but he’s nothing more than a Bork in sheep’s clothing,” she added, referring to Judge Robert Bork, who was rejected by the Senate after being nominated by President Reagan in 1987.

The president of the Feminist Majority Foundation, Eleanor Smeal, attacked Judge Roberts over briefs he signed while serving as deputy solicitor general during President George H.W. Bush’s administration. One asserted that the landmark abortion decision, Roe v. Wade, was wrongly decided and should be overturned. “Not only did he argue that Roe should be reversed, but also he argued for Operation Rescue and the people who were blockading, intimidating, and terrorizing women,” Ms. Smeal said.

Many of Judge Roberts’s backers assert it is unfair to ascribe the views in those briefs to him, but Ms. Smeal said it is entirely reasonable to do so. “He was a political appointment, and he knew what he was doing, and he was a political appointment that could influence the decision,” she said. “We believe that he was very clear there.”

Ms. Smeal also faulted Mr. Bush for not seeking to replace retiring Justice O’Connor with a woman. “We also want to express our bitter disappointment that the president has chosen not to appoint a woman. This is a backward step. We are being reduced again to a token position on the court,” Ms. Smeal said.

A lawmaker who joined the women’s groups, Rep. Maxine Waters, a Democrat of California, said Judge Roberts’s views on abortion were evident. “We know enough about this nominee to be opposed to him,” she said. “We know that he’s opposed to Roe v. Wade. We know that he’s opposed to abortion.”

On the Senate floor yesterday, Senator Cornyn, a Republican of Texas, accused interest groups of reflexively attacking Judge Roberts, and he suggested some were doing so for financial reasons. “Already we have seen those who seem to have had a fill-in-the-blank press release, waiting only for the name of the nominee before they send them out into cyberspace,” Mr. Cornyn said. “We know there are those outside this chamber who will try to vilify any nominee in order to exploit this process for political gain, including raising money.”

Calling Judge Roberts “an ideal nominee,” the senator rejected suggestions that the brevity of the judge’s judicial career should be a strike against his nomination. Judge Roberts has been a judge on the federal appeals court in Washington for just two years, although he has argued 39 cases before the Supreme Court. “Chief Justice Rehnquist had never served as a judge before he was nominated to the court,” Mr. Cornyn said. “One does not need to be a career jurist to serve this nation with distinction as a justice.”

Supporters of the president’s nominee yesterday announced a $1 million advertising buy aimed at informing Americans about Judge Roberts’s record. A pro-administration group, Progress for America, rolled out a television ad that notes Judge Roberts was at the top of his class in Harvard Law School and worked for Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush. “Shouldn’t a fair judge be treated fairly?” the ad asks.

Groups opposed to Judge Roberts said they were focusing on grassroots efforts and had no plans to begin advertising immediately.

As reporters, lawmakers, and activists sought to divine Judge Roberts’s views on abortion yesterday, some liberal Web sites pointed to the role of his wife, Jane Sullivan Roberts, in a group opposed to legalized abortion, Feminists for Life.

In an interview with The New York Sun, the group’s president, Sherrin Foster, said Ms. Roberts served as executive vice president of the organization from 1995 to 1999 and has since acted as counsel to the group. Ms. Roberts is an attorney and Washington-based partner with Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman.

Ms. Foster said most of Ms. Roberts’s work for Feminists for Life consisted of routine corporate filings. However, in 1998, Ms. Roberts helped prepare an affidavit the group filed, along with the American Civil Liberties Union, supporting a challenge to a Kentucky school’s policy of denying honors society membership to girls who had given birth. “We didn’t think that was a good thing,” Ms. Foster said.

Asked if Mr. Roberts was directly involved with the anti-abortion group, Ms. Foster said, “He hasn’t had any direct involvement. I’ve been to his wedding and met him in his reception line. It’s really Jane.”

One woman who is leading the campaign against Judge Roberts said the evidence of his hostility to abortion rights is so ample that there is no need to look to his wife’s views.

“She’s obviously very serious about her opposition to abortion under all circumstances. I don’t necessarily impute that to him, because I think spouses can differ,” the National Organization for Women president, Ms. Gandy, said, noting that the judge received a “glowing endorsement” from a militant anti-abortion group, Operation Rescue. “I think his views are pretty clear. … If it looks like a duck, if it walks like a duck, if it talks like a duck, it might just be a duck.”

Mr. Schumer said yesterday that intense questioning of Judge Roberts on his judicial views could actually improve the tenor of the debate by avoiding the sorts of personal inquiries that bogged down judicial nominations for many years.

“Somehow only Republicans were upset when a Democrat smoked marijuana in high school and only Democrats were upset when a Republican smoked marijuana in high school,” Mr. Schumer said. “It was a kabuki game that demeaned the process.”