[Mb-civic] Pro-Roe and pro-Alito - Joan Vennochi - Boston Globe
Op-Ed
William Swiggard
swiggard at comcast.net
Sun Jan 15 06:38:53 PST 2006
Pro-Roe and pro-Alito
By Joan Vennochi | January 15, 2006 | The Boston Globe
CAN YOU be pro-abortion rights and pro-Alito?
Christine Todd Whitman, the former governor of New Jersey, former Bush
cabinet member and a pro-choice Republican, is trying to make that case.
With pro-choice Republican senators facing a vote on Samuel A. Alito
Jr., Whitman introduced the Supreme Court nominee to the Senate
judiciary committee -- and backed his nomination.
She did it, she said in an interview, after much thought and two calls
-- one from the White House and one from Alito.
In Whitman's view, ''I don't think Roe ought to be overturned. It is
established law." Alito would not say that during last week's hearings.
She also describes the nominee as ''personally pro-life."
So why back him for the Supreme Court? Does loyalty to a New Jersey son
trump Roe v. Wade? Why show any fealty to the Bush adminstration, which
undercut Whitman's efforts as head of the Environmental Protection
Agency? Does Whitman believe that backing Alito will make her more
politically palatable to the national GOP?
Those are fair political questions. But Whitman said her support for
Alito is based on personal knowledge -- as governor, she nominated him
for the bench. She said ''that you can't deplore a litmus test on one
side and have it on your own."
Whitman told the committee: ''I have every confidence he will be a
balanced, fair and thoughtful justice." In a follow-up interview, she
maintained that Alito ''does not have an ideology that will
pre-determine his decisions."
As evidence, she points to a New Jersey abortion rights case, Planned
Parenthood of Central New Jersey v. Farmer. In 1997, the New Jersey
legislature passed a law banning late-term abortions. Whitman vetoed it
on grounds that it was unconstitutional. The legislature overrode the
veto. The appellate court upon which Alito sat struck down the law.
Alito wrote a separate, concurring opinion, stating that in this
decision, he was bound by ''controlling Supreme Court precedent."
Abortion rights advocates say the case tells nothing about what Alito
would do as a Supreme Court justice, when he would be in a position to
set precedent, rather than be bound by it.
There are other reasons to believe Alito is inclined, if not determined,
to undercut Roe v. Wade: In 1985, as a government lawyer, he stated in a
memo that the Constitution did not protect abortion rights. As a member
of a three-judge panel that heard Planned Parenthood of Southeastern
Pennsylvania v. Casey before that case went to the Supreme Court, Alito
wrote a dissent in which he voted to uphold every abortion restriction
at issue in the law. During his hearings, he declined an invitation from
Senator Arlen Specter, judiciary committee chairman and pro-choice
Republican, to label Roe a ''super-precedent" after Casey reaffirmed
Roe. When Senator Dianne Feinstein of California asked Alito if he
agreed that Roe v. Wade was ''well-settled in court," Alito answered:
''It depends on what one means by the term 'well-settled."' In his
nomination hearings to become chief justice, John G. Roberts Jr. agreed
with ''settled."
Whitman said she knew her decision would upset people; Planned
Parenthood Republicans for Choice issued a statement of disappointment.
She said she made it after concluding that Alito is decent, bright, and
thoughtful, and secondly, that ''for the last 15 years he has not shown
an ideology and agenda he is going to push."
But, the only way an abortion rights supporter can support Alito is to
take a very broad view -- that the Supreme Court, even with Alito on it,
is not going to simply overturn Roe. Abortion rights advocates label
that wishful, risky thinking, especially since the abortion battlefield
is currently focused more on curtailing access than the outright
overturning of Roe, and Alito has shown a willingness to curtail. But
the rationale allows someone to support Alito for other reasons.
What might those other reasons be? Perhaps that Alito is intelligent,
qualified and personifies a president's right to pick a nominee who
reflects his ideology.
However, that analysis overlooks the elephant in the room, what Senator
Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, acknowledged in his opening
statement: ''The real debate here is about Roe," said Coburn, an
abortion opponent. ''We're going to go off in all sorts of directions,
but the decisions that are going to be made on votes on the committee
and the votes on the floor is going to be about Roe."
Pro-Roe and pro-Alito? It doesn't add up. But that's politics.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/01/15/pro_roe_and_pro_alito/
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