{"id":6307,"date":"2006-01-11T10:46:21","date_gmt":"2006-01-11T15:46:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=6307"},"modified":"2006-01-11T10:46:21","modified_gmt":"2006-01-11T15:46:21","slug":"alito-roe-and-settled-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/alito-roe-and-settled-law\/","title":{"rendered":"Alito, Roe, and ‘settled law’"},"content":{"rendered":"

In his questioning of Samuel Alito yesterday, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), who is pro-choice, mentioned Roe v Wade 14 times<\/a> over the course of 30 minutes. Alito eventually pledged to have an “open mind<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr. said yesterday that his 1985 assertion that the Constitution does not protect the right to an abortion was a “true expression of my views at the time,” but he told senators he would “approach the question with an open mind” if confirmed to the high court.<\/p>\n

Repeatedly asked about abortion rulings that date to the 1973 Roe v. Wade case, Alito said long-standing decisions deserve great respect. He stopped short of saying Roe could not be overturned, however, saying that the doctrine of following precedent is not “an exorable command” — the same language the late Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist once used in arguing to overturn Roe .<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Specter pushed Alito, a little, on the question of overturning a right that had been reaffirmed 38 times, but Alito joked dryly that he “would not get into categorizing precedents as super-precedents or super-duper precedents.”<\/p>\n

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) decided<\/a> today that Specter was asking the right question the wrong way.
\n<\/p>\n

Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) said he, and others, were concerned that Alito would be a deciding vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. He was concerned, he said, because Alito has declined to disown his 1985 memo saying there was no constitutional basis for a right to abortion and because he declined to state his current views on Roe.<\/p>\n

Why, Durbin asked him, was he willing to answer questions about Griswold [the 1965 decision establishing a right to privacy in the context of contraceptives] and Brown [v Board of Education] but not Roe v. Wade. “For you to say that you’re for Griswold . . . but you can’t bring yourself to say there is a constitutional right to a woman’s privacy . . . I’m troubled by that.”<\/p>\n

Alito said Brown was squarely based on the Equal Protection Clause. Griswold, while based on “emanations and penumbras,” has been understood in later cases as based on the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment. The issue in Griswold “is not likely to come before” the Supreme Court again “so I feel an ability to comment on that.”<\/p>\n

“This is what troubles me,” said Durbin, “that you do not see Roe” as a logical extension of Griswold.”<\/p>\n

“You have left in question the future of Roe v. Wade.” Durbin said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Durbin asked Alito if Roe was “settled law.” Alito wasn’t prepared to go there: “If settled means it can’t be reexamined, that’s one thing. If settled means it is a precedent entitled to respect as stare decisis … then it is a precedent entitled to respect under stare decisis.”<\/p>\n

Durbin responded that “people will leave this hearing with a question, that maybe you will be the … deciding vote” in overturning Roe. I think it’s way beyond “a question” at this point.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In his questioning of Samuel Alito yesterday, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), who is pro-choice, mentioned Roe v Wade 14 times over the course of 30 minutes. Alito eventually pledged to have an “open mind.” Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr. said yesterday that his 1985 assertion that the Constitution does not protect the right […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6307\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}