From the Christian Science Monitor, an article examining past legal opinions of this would-be Supreme concerning abortion rights. It seems that while his personal beliefs run one way, his rulings often runs contrary to his personal beliefs. From
the article:... the true test of appeals court judges isn't which personal views they hold, but to what extent those personal views may influence how they rule in a particular case. On this issue, legal analysts disagree in their assessments of Judge Alito. Some say he is a conservative ideologue. Others say he is a smart, careful jurist who leaves personal views behind when he dons his black robes.
The best evidence of his work as a judge are his published opinions. They contain a few surprises and some ammunition - for both the left and the right. For example, of the four abortion cases in which he participated as an appeals court judge, he voted on the pro-choice side in all but one. A 1995 Alito vote striking down a Pennsylvania abortion restriction in particular is raising eyebrows among some legal scholars.
"That [1995 case] strongly seems to indicate that Alito is not a policy-driven true-believer who's used every possible opportunity to advance one side's preferred outcome, but instead a judge who has indeed come down on both sides, in different cases," says David Garrow, a constitutional historian and expert in reproductive rights cases at the high court.
By all means, read the rest of the article in the CSM. It's an interesting case study of a man caught in the crossroads of history.
This Daily Kos diary also points out some interesting contradictions in Alito.
And it's also interesting to keep in mind that abortion was accepted by all religions and all nations right up to the 19th century, Christianity included. So the "right to life" is no more a given than anything else, including the right to nuke innocent civilians. And I must note here that I assume that all "right to lifers" must be against the death penalty under any and all circumstances, or they are just opinionated hypocrites.
Crossposted at
Political Physics and my diary at
My Left Wing.