Samuel "Scalito" Alito: Abortion "may be obviated by discussion"

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_A._Alito,_Jr.

Samuel A. Alito Jr. (born April 1, 1950) is a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. His ideological likeness to United States Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia has earned him the nickname "Scalito."

Alito wrote the opinion for ACLU v. Schundler (1999), holding that a holiday display on city property did not violate the Establishment Clause because it included secular symbols, such as a large plastic Santa Claus, in addition to religious symbols.

Alito was the sole dissenter in the Third Circuit's decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1991), which struck down a Pennsylvania law requiring women to inform their husbands before getting an abortion. The majority's decision was upheld by the Supreme Court in the landmark case Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992).

MORE, from US News & World Report:



http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/050719/19alito.htm

In 1997, Alito authored the majority opinion upholding a city's right to stage a holiday display that included a Nativity scene and a menorah because the city also included secular symbols and a banner emphasizing the importance of diversity. In Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Alito was the sole dissenter on the Third Circuit, which struck a Pennsylvania law that required women seeking abortions to consult their husbands. He argued that many of the potential reasons for an abortion, such as "economic constraints, future plans, or the husbands' previously expressed opposition . . . may be obviated by discussion prior to abortion." The case went on to the Supreme Court, which upheld the lower court's decision 6 to 3.

Alito's conservative stripes are equally evident in criminal law. Lawrence Lustberg, a New Jersey criminal defense lawyer who has known Alito since 1981 and tried cases before him on the Third Circuit, describes him as "an activist conservatist judge" who is tough on crime and narrowly construes prisoners' and criminals' rights. "He's very prosecutorial from the bench. He has looked to be creative in his conservatism, which is, I think, as much a Rehnquist as a Scalia trait," Lustberg says.

Some observers say that Alito cannot be easily pigeon-holed. In Saxe v. State College Area School District, Alito, writing for the panel, argued that the school does not have the right to punish students for vulgar language or harassment when it doesn't disrupt the school day. "Sam struck that down as a violation of free speech," Kmiec says. "That's not a conservative outcome."

Off the bench, friends and colleagues describe Alito as quiet and self-effacing with a wry sense of humor. He is a voracious reader with a particular love for biographies and history. With his wife, Martha, he has a son in college and a daughter in high school. "He's mild mannered and generous and family oriented," Lustberg says. "I don't agree with him on many issues, but I have the utmost respect for him. No one can question his intelligence or integrity."

[deadparrot]

1. Reid's spoken out against him.

Let's hope it's a sign of things to come.

[drummo]

9. Reid as usual was soft like melting snow. Why on earth did the Dems

put this Daschle #2 in this position?

The Reps are pitbulls. You want to fight pitbulls with snowballs or what?

[deadparrot]

12. Why not hold your judgement until the Democrats actually

do (or don't do) something? Reid did as much as he could before Bush even named the nominee--he warned him against it. You can't filibuster (or take any sort of real action against) a nominee that hasn't been named yet.

[aquart]

2. How nice of him to want to order couples to talk.

As usual, being Republican means being short-sighted and severely over-privileged. Completely unable to understand any economic or social reality but his own.

He may use fancy sentences, but he's a fool.

[kurth]

3. When the wingnuts praise their judges as "qualified" or "brilliant",

what they mean is nothing more than sophistry and hypocrisy in the service of fascism.

Do we really need another Scalia Mini Me on the Supreme Court?

[ShockediSay]

4. He seems inclined to legislate from the bench

Period.

[Erika]

5. I'm still laughing about the RW saying W's choice should be upheld

and an up or down vote held. I guess W is on his knees to Coulter, Rush, and Falwell, drooling and begging them to let this nominee be OK'd.

[Warren DeMontague]

6. Grrreat. I want a Flying Spaghetti Monster Display on public property.

It can be mitigated by some "secular" symbols, like jars of Prego Spaghetti Sauce.

[thinkingwoman]

7. mitigated by secular jars of Prego

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Thanks, that was beautifully funny!

[drummo]

8. Of course one can question his integrity!

Someone who is an "activist conservatist judge" who is "very prosecutorial from the bench" abuses his power. And since when do people who abuse their power have integrity?

Whether someone notifies his husband before an abortion is none of
Alito's fucking business. Who does he think he is? :grr:

[More Than A Feeling]

10. It's even worse than that

part of the quote that they did not show is "the pennsylvania legislature could have rationally believed that economic restraints etc etc"

So he A. believes that position is rational and B. isn't willing to state that he supports that outloud, so he made stuff up about the Pennsylvania legislature.

[welshTerrier2]

11. O'Connor, Kennedy, Souter: "husband notification" law is "repugnant"

the majority opinion of the SC put its emphasis on the idea that no law should constitute an "undue burden" on a woman seeking an abortion ... the PA law included other provisions beyond "husband notification" that were upheld ...

a couple of these were that a woman seeking an abortion must be:

"provided with certain information at least 24 hours before the abortion is performed" and that "the informed consent of one parent for a minor to obtain an abortion"

but in striking down the "husband notification" provision of the PA law, the majority referred to the view of marriage it embodied as "repugnant" ... how ironic that Justice O'Connor, the SC Justice Alito hopes to replace, labeled the view Alito held when he wrote his lower court opinion as "repugnant" ... what higher praise could one have for a nominee, his view of marriage, his understanding of the Constitution and his values???

source: http://straylight.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/91-744.ZS.html

2. Section 3209's husband notification provision constitutes an undue burden and is therefore invalid. A significant number of women will likely be prevented from obtaining an abortion just as surely as if Pennsylvania had outlawed the procedure entirely. The fact that § 3209 may affect fewer than one percent of women seeking abortions does not save it from facial invalidity, since the proper focus of constitutional inquiry is the group for whom the law is a restriction, not the group for whom it is irrelevant. Furthermore, it cannot be claimed that the father's interest in the fetus' welfare is equal to the mother's protected liberty, since it is an inescapable biological fact that state regulation with respect to the fetus will have a far greater impact on the pregnant woman's bodily integrity than it will on the husband. Section 3209 embodies a view of marriage consonant with the common law status of married women but repugnant to this Court's present understanding of marriage and of the nature of the rights secured by the Constitution. See Planned Parenthood of Central Mo. v. Danforth, 428 U.S. 52, 69. Pp. 46-58.