thereisnospoon made
a good argument that Alito getting put into the Supreme Court is not such a bad thing, since American women will still be able to get abortions somehow, no matter how he votes. I agree that the reason the Alito candidacy is repulsive relates to "women's issues", but I think that to focus on abortion rights misses the more fundamental point.
With only two women on the SCOTUS, Alito will replace one of those two women. What does that say to the country and the world about America's attitudes about women??? Roughly half of the students that are enrolled in law schools are women now. So women have been coming through the system in significant numbers for quite some time. So it is not as if Bush could not find a qualified woman to replace O'Connor.
The problem was of course that it is very difficult to find a qualified woman to replace O'Connor—one that would meet Bush's ideological prerequisites. At his first go, Bush selected a woman who would do the latter, but unfortunately she wasn't qualified. As a matter of fact, it appears that no token women who have gone far enough through the legal system are available who would represent the interests of the groups that the Rethugs represent, in the way that Bush 1 was able to find a black man.
Bush was unable to find a woman who would carry out his agenda. Why can't Dems recognize that, and tell it to the American people?
And where were the feminists in all this? If a department at a public university were seven-ninth's male, there is no way the university would be able to get away with replacing one of the women with a man.