Roe v. Wade talk stirs liberals
Detroit News
Scott Shepard / Cox News Service
January 19, 2006 Roe v. Wade talk stirs liberals
WASHINGTON -- Abortion rights advocates heard alarm bells last week when Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito refused to characterize Roe v. Wade as "settled law," the phrase Chief Justice John Roberts used in his confirmation hearings last fall. They saw the refusal as evidence that Alito, as the successor to Sandra Day O'Connor on the nine-member court, will eventually be the vote that ultimately overturns the 1973 landmark ruling that legalized abortion in the United States. Alito, if confirmed by the full Senate, "will move the court in a very different and dangerous direction for women's legal rights," Kate Michelman, former leader of the NARAL Pro-Choice America organization, told the Senate Judiciary Committee after Alito had testified for nearly three days before the panel. But Charles Fried, a senior official in the Reagan administration, said the same about Alito last week that he said about Roberts in his confirmation hearings last September -- that he will not vote to overturn Roe. Fried's views are revealing because he was Alito's boss at the Justice Department in 1985 when Alito submitted the job application that caused him so much trouble with Democrats on the Judiciary Committee last week. In the application, Alito expressed pride in advancing legal positions reflecting his "personal" beliefs, including the view that "the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion." Fried, who argued in favor of overturning Roe as Ronald Reagan's solicitor general from 1985 to 1989, acknowledged to the Judiciary Committee during Roberts' hearings last fall that the Roe decision has become a "big tree" in American society and that it would be "an enormous disruption" if felled. Consequently, Fried added, "if you want a prediction from me (about Roberts and Roe), I would predict that he would never vote -- no, not never -- but he would not vote to overrule it for the reasons that I have given." Would he make the same prediction of Alito? Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., asked Fried as the Judiciary Committee was winding up its hearings on Alito's nomination Friday. "I would," Fried responded, "yes, that would be my prediction." However, Laurence Tribe, who like Fried is a professor a Harvard Law School, did not share his colleague's optimism about Alito and Roe v. Wade when it came his turn to testify before the Judiciary Committee on Friday. Tribe predicted that with Alito a member, the Supreme Court will pursue a "step-by-step process" against Roe, "not just to the point where, as the moderate American center has it, abortion is cautiously restricted, but to the point where the fundamental right to liberty becomes a hollow shell." Tribe said he based his prediction in part on his review of Alito's work as a government lawyer in the Reagan administration, including his reading of a 17-page memo written by Alito for Fried citing a court case in Pennsylvania as an opportunity for "mitigating the effects" of Roe until it could be overruled.
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