Feinstein asks Alito about 1985 abortion statement



By JESSE J. HOLLAND, Associated Press Writer
Last Updated 9:10 am PST Tuesday, November 15, 2005

WASHINGTON (AP) - Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito distanced himself Tuesday from his 1985 comments that there was no constitutional right to abortion, telling a California senator in private that he had been "an advocate seeking a job." Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., an abortion rights supporter and the only woman on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said she asked the conservative judge about a document released Monday showing Alito in 1985 telling the Reagan administration he was particularly proud to help argue that "the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion."

Read the whole article here:
http://www.sacbee.com/state_wire/story/13862136p-14701810c.html

it never see's to amaze me that people especially men feel that they have the right to tell a woman what she can and can't do with her body....don't get me wrong...everyone is entitled to their opinion but don't dare try and impose your beliefs on me!!!!

Unfortunately the current administration does that all the time!

Published: November 17, 2005
To the Editor:
Re "Ignore the Man Behind That Memo" (editorial, Nov. 16):
In 1985, Samuel A. Alito Jr., then a lawyer applying for a promotion in the Reagan administration, was unambiguous in his rejection of any constitutional role in protecting abortion rights. More disturbing was his incomprehensible rejection of reapportionment, which is the very basis of fairness in our democracy.
Judge Alito explained away his documented philosophy by saying he was merely "an advocate seeking a job." What Judge Alito doesn't explain is how his position now is different from then.
Is everything he says now being said as "an advocate seeking a job"?
Fred Polvere
Yonkers, Nov. 16, 2005
• To the Editor:
For The Times's consistently liberal editorial page to brand Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. with the highly charged word "ideologue" because he states that he has always been a conservative is unwarranted and unfair. Presumably, someone who states that he or she has always been a liberal would not be so vilified.
This is not a case of the pot calling the kettle black, but rather the pot calling the kettle an ideologue because it does not share its own non-ideological pot-like views.
John T. Dillon
West Caldwell, N.J., Nov. 16, 2005
• To the Editor:
You insist that the Constitution protects abortion rights and that anyone who disagrees is "far outside the legal mainstream."
Even at Harvard Law School, that great bastion of liberalism that I now call my home, it is not terribly uncommon to hear supporters of abortion as a policy right criticize the Supreme Court's sloppy jurisprudence in the area.
Roe v. Wade, like all decided Supreme Court cases, has precedential value. But it is certainly not unreasonable - and surely not outside the legal mainstream - to question its underlying logic.
Elliott Marc Davis
Cambridge, Mass., Nov. 16, 2005
• To the Editor:
You highlight many contradictions between Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr.'s record and his reassurances issued to pass muster before the Senate and the American people.
Just as the leopard doesn't change his spots, ideologues don't change either. It causes one to wonder about the ethics of saying anything to get a job in the Reagan administration (regardless of whether or not it was a "political" position).
Perhaps it underscores the problem inherent with judicial selection by appointment and the inability to escape politics. It also underscores the need to judge the merits of any candidacy for political office, a judgeship or any other job that deals with how we live our lives.
Stewart M. Casper
Stamford, Conn., Nov. 16, 2005
• To the Editor:
You say Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. is an "ideologue" who is "outside the legal mainstream." Maybe so. But do the editorial writers of The Times imagine that they are in the mainstream or that they are non-ideological?
Is there anybody who will deny that your typical editorial (including the one on Judge Alito) is inspired by liberal ideology? Is there anyone other than your editorial writers who will confuse the "mainstream" of Manhattan with the mainstream of America?
David R. Carlin
Newport, R.I., Nov. 16, 2005
• To the Editor:
You say of Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr., "Equally alarming is the notion that he fudged the truth to tell a potential employer what it wanted to hear." And here he is, telling us, his next potential employer, what he thinks we want to hear. Q.E.D.
Sandra Sizer
Boston, Nov. 16, 2005

But in 1985, Alito urged that the Justice Department attack the issue by working for limitations on abortion.
''I find this approach preferable to a frontal assault on Roe v. Wade,'' Alito wrote. ''It has most of the advantages of a brief devoted to overruling of Roe v. Wade; it makes our position clear, does not even tacitly concede Roe's legitimacy, and signals that we regard the question as live and open. At the same time, it is free of many of the disadvantages that would accompany a major effort to overturn Roe.''



Full article at


http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Alito.html?hp&ex=1133413200&en=df5304185fab99d8&ei=5094&partner=homepage

November 30, 2005
To the Editor:
I don't get it. According to his Princeton classmate Andrew P. Napolitano ("From Alito's Past, a Window on Conservatives at Princeton," front page, Nov. 27), Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. "is so intellectually honest that he labored mightily to keep those" socially conservative "inclinations from influencing his decisions on the bench."
Admittedly, Mr. Napolitano is no spokesman for the Bush administration. But if the administration, in promoting Judge Alito's nomination, agrees that the best judges are those who scrupulously keep their ideological views out of their judicial decisions, why doesn't it nominate liberals who would adhere to that principle?
Donald M. Solomon
Boston, Nov. 28, 2005

Judge Samuel Alito Jr., President Bush's Supreme Court nominee, promised yesterday that his personal views would not be a factor in how he approached abortion cases. The trouble is that there is mounting evidence that Judge Alito has been hoping for years to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision recognizing women's abortion rights. His attempts to explain away his record of insisting that the Constitution does not protect abortion are becoming more tortured, and harder to believe.



Full editorial at

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/03/opinion/03sat1.html?hp

I really doubt that would happen. Those statements were made a long time ago. Even if Roe vs Wade was overturned it wouldn't ban abortions. It would leave it up to the states.

Still there is no excuse for the rude treatment he has been receiving. I can't believe that his wife left in tears.