Washington ? President Barack Obama, treading carefully in the explosive arena of abortion and the Supreme Court, said Wednesday he will choose a nominee who pays heed to the rights of women and the privacy of their bodies. Yet he said he won’t enforce any abortion rights “litmus tests.”

Obama said it is “very important to me” that his court choice take women’s rights into account in interpreting the Constitution, his most expansive comments yet about how a woman’s right to choose will factor into his decision.

He plans to choose someone to succeed Justice John Paul Stevens within “the next couple weeks,” he told CNBC.