The Jury is Still Out on Alito’s Conservatism…
While liberal special interest groups are castigating President Bush’s latest Supreme Court nominee as a far-right extremist, details are beginning to emerge that may indicate otherwise.
Alito’s abortion votes lean “pro-choice”:
According to an article in the 11-2-05 Christian Science Monitor, Judge Samuel Alito used three of four chances to impact the abortion issue as an appeals judge to vote IN FAVOR of abortion rights. Here are the paper’s descriptions of those cases:
“¢ A 1991 challenge to a Pennsylvania law requiring married women to notify their husbands before seeking an abortion. The court struck down the restriction. Alito dissented.
“¢ A 1995 challenge to a Pennsylvania law that required women seeking to use Medicaid funds to abort a pregnancy resulting from rape or incest to report the incident to law enforcement officials and identify the offender. Alito provided the decisive vote striking down the abortion restriction.
“¢ A 1997 challenge to a New Jersey law that prevents parents from suing for damages on behalf of the wrongful death of a fetus. Alito ruled that the Constitution does not afford protection to the unborn.
“¢ A 2000 challenge to New Jersey’s ban on so-called partial-birth abortions. Alito struck down the law based on a recent Supreme Court decision.
Support for “privacy rights” worries conservatives:
Another revelation disturbing conservative activists is the support Alito expressed for so-called “privacy rights.” According to an article in the 11-2-05 Boston Globe, Alito Jr. chaired an undergraduate task force that recommended the decriminalization of sodomy, accused the CIA and the FBI of invading the privacy of citizens, and said discrimination against gays in hiring ”should be forbidden.”
According to the Globe, Alito crafted the foreword for a public policy paper on privacy rights at Princeton in 1971 in which he wrote, “‘We sense a great threat to privacy in modern America.” He continued, ”We all believe that privacy is too often sacrificed to other values; we all believe that the threat to privacy is steadily and rapidly mounting; we all believe that action must be taken on many fronts now to preserve privacy.”
Since the time Alito wrote that foreword, so-called “privacy rights” have been used as the basis for justifying landmark Supreme Court cases that legalized abortion (Roe v. Wade, 1973) and same-sex sodomy (Lawrence v. Texas, 2003).
(Editor’s Note: FPN has NOT taken a position “for” or “against” Judge Samuel Alito as a Supreme Court nominee.)
RELATED INFORMATION:
See the full Christian Science Monitor article regarding Alito’s pro-abortion votes here:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1102/p01s04-usju.html
See the full Boston Globe article concerning Alito’s writing in favor of “privacy rights”:
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/…
Washington Post: Nominee’s reasoning points to a “likely” vote against Roe v. Wade:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/…