Uh-Oh, Alito
OK, Kabuki Theatre (SCOTUS Confirmation Edition) or "We've been had" Part Deux?
You tell me.
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You tell me.
Oh, here we go with that pesky, "I'm personally opposed, but..." again.Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr. has signaled he would be highly reluctant to overturn long-standing precedents such as the 1973 Roe v. Wade abortion rights ruling, a move that has helped to silence some of his critics and may resolve a key problem early in the Senate confirmation process, several senators said yesterday. "He basically said . . . that Roe was precedent on which people -- a lot of people -- relied, and been precedent now for decades and therefore deserved great respect," Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) told reporters after meeting with Alito yesterday. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said she had a similar conversation about an hour later with Alito, who has made clear that he personally opposes abortion.
In private meetings with senators who support abortion rights, Alito has said the Supreme Court should be quite wary of reversing decisions that have been repeatedly upheld, according to the senators who said it was clear that the context was abortion.
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posted by Rocco Palmo at 23:30
1 Comments:
No fears, Rocco.
A few things are in play:
1) Third hand spin of private conversations. You've covered ecclesiastical and American politics long enough to know how much stock to put in information of that pedigree.
2) Roe's overturning would be of psychological value more than practical value. Abortion jurisprudence today doesn't rest on a foundation in Roe v Wade and Doe v Bolton. Despite the rhetoric in the PP v Casey decision, the creation of the "undue burden" standard makes Roe's trimester framework essentially meaningless, if push came to shove.
3) He may have been equivocating. Lawyers are known to do that from time to time. He is still an Appellate Court judge. He's trying to win confirmation to SCOTUS. And he's a serious jurist. I don't think we'll be disappointed, even if the pro-life cause doesn't get the long-hoped-for overturning of Roe v Wade.
4) There is a good chance that a case which challenges Roe may not come before the Court during his tenure. It *did* take a civil war to nullify Dred Scott, and almost 65 years before Brown v Board of Education nullified Plessy. You can respect precedent for a variety of reasons, other than good legal reasoning.
So, no fear in my mind. I really don't care how he would rule on a challenge to Roe, as I don't think it would matter. Overturning Roe would be no more a panacea to the social ills identified by the pro-life movement than restoring the Old Rite would immediately cure liturgical abuses and heresy in the hierarchy.
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