November 16, 2005 - In 1985, when he was an up and coming lawyer jockeying for position in the Reagan Justice Department Samuel Alito opined that there was no constitutional right for a woman to obtain an abortion despite that the Supreme Court had found that there was in Roe v. Wade. Today as a nominee for a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court the same Samuel Alito has assured skeptical Senators of both parties that he recognizes that the government may not intrude into a citizens protected privacy rights – the rationale upon which Roe v. Wade is grounded. Now I believe that rational people can change their opinions on important issues over time but this seeming conflict between the views of the young conservative lawyer and those of the more mature judge is troubling.

Which Sam Alito are we getting? Is it the young lawyer on the make who does not recognize a woman’s right to privacy in reproductive matters? Is it the more mature judge on the make who gives lip service to the right of a woman to make private decisions about the use to which her body will be put. There is a common ground between the opinion expressed by the young lawyer seeking preferment in the Justice Department by emphasizing his orthodox Conservative credentials and the opinion of the mature yet youngish judge seeking preferment for a seat at the Supreme Court Bench by emphasizing his devotion to established precedent as he speaks to moderate Republican Senators.

The 1985 memo was furnished by the Reagan Presidential Library – not the Bush Administration. As Senator Collins to whom Judge Alito spoke of his devotion to established law including a woman’s privacy right said when she got her hands on the memo – it gives one pause. The direct statement that there is no Constitution protection of the right to choose whether or not to carry a pregnancy to term must make one wonder which Sam Alito will sit on the Supreme Court. Will he, as one of the youngest men ever nominated as one of the final arbiters in our system of justice, honor decades of established law and honed precedent or will he, to use an inapt metaphor, be ready to cast the baby out with the bath water? Will he act to re-criminalize a matter the courts of the past have held to be a private matter between a woman, her doctor, and her conscience?

I can’t divine the answers to that important question. I can’t tell whether the Sam Alito who will sit with the Senate Judiciary Committee has abandoned the knee-jerk conservatism of his youth in favor of a judicial philosophy tempered by a mature appreciation of the proper role of judges in an evolving society. That is the question to which each Senator must find an answer for him or her self. It is a question of grave importance for once confirmed Justice Alito will have a pivotal part in shaping the future of each American for a generation to come. It is a time for sober reflection and the abandonment of partisan posturing to please this or that base. It is a time in which Senators must heed the call to become Statesmen rather than contestants.