Planned Parenthood is opposing Judge Alito's nomination to replace Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court because his judicial philosophy is far to the right of Justice O'Connor's. It is clear that Judge Alito would vote with the extremists on the court to further undermine reproductive and privacy rights.
Alito's own writings mark him as an extremist far right of mainstream American philosophy. In a 1985 memo, Judge Alito outlined a detailed legal and political strategy to gut and eventually overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court case that gave women the right to terminate a pregnancy.
Furthermore, Judge Alito was the lone dissenter in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey when the case was before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. He voted to uphold Pennsylvania’s husband notification requirement, which would have required Pennsylvania women — even many battered women at risk of harm — to notify their husbands prior to obtaining an abortion. Justice O'Connor and a majority of her colleagues on the Supreme Court ruled the provision unconstitutional, holding that a state cannot give a man control over his wife, stating, “Women do not lose their constitutionally protected liberty when they marry.”
On November 30, the Supreme Court heard a case (Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood) that could severely undermine thirty years of precedent protecting women's health. Given Judge Alito's willingness to uphold the most exreme restrictions on abortion rights, we are deeply concerned about how he would rule on this case (and many others) if confirmed.
