And So It Begins... Again
Leave Alito on for Me

Harriet, we hardly knew you; from the WaPo:

President Bush today named appeals court Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. to the U.S. Supreme Court. Alito, 55, serves on the Philadelphia-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, where his record on abortion rights and church-state issues has been widely applauded by conservatives and criticized by liberals.

And just a little background from Salon's War Room:

In 1991, Alito argued that the state of Pennsylvania could prohibit married women from obtaining abortions without telling their husbands first -- and he made the argument not as a city council candidate looking to please an interest group or as a lawyer representing a client. He made it as a sitting judge. In a lone dissent in a case that would ultimately become the Supreme Court's Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Alito said that a state did not impose a constitutionally impermissible "undue burden" on abortion rights unless it outlawed abortion altogether or had the "practical effect of imposing severe limitations on abortion."

In Alito's mind, requiring a woman to tell her husband didn't amount to such a "severe limitation." Alito said that the Pennsylvania Legislature "could have rationally believed that some married women are initially inclined to obtain an abortion without their husbands' knowledge because of perceived problems -- such as economic constraints, future plans, or the husbands' previously expressed opposition -- that may be obviated by discussion prior to the abortion." In other words, the state can require a woman to tell her husband before getting an abortion because the husband may know things that the woman doesn't.

Does it matter? On Casey, maybe not immediately: The Supreme Court rejected Alito's views, invalidated the Pennsylvania statute and reaffirmed Roe on a 5-4 vote in 1992, but the court has picked up a pro-choice vote -- in the Ruth Bader Ginsburg for Byron White swap -- since then. Replacing Sandra Day O'Connor with Alito would simply move the court back to 5-4 on the question of preserving Roe. But as Alito's dissenting opinion in the Casey case shows, you can gut Roe without reversing it by simply defining away terms like "undue burden" until they provide no protection at all. With another justice "in the mold" of Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, the court could -- and almost certainly would -- move ever closer to doing just that.

And from the NYTimes, this might be all you need to know about Alito in regards to his conservatism:

An early signal of conservative approval came from Gary Bauer, a prominent social conservative, who called the choice of Judge Alito a "grand slam home run." Mr. Bauer, interviewed on CNN, called the judge a "mainstream conservative" and predicted that while there would be a battle from Democrats, Judge Alito would ultimately be confirmed. "They'll try to label him as extreme, but when you get into the hearings, you'll get into specifics," he said.