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Wash Post: Alito leaves door open to overturning Roe v. Wade



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If you're a man who ever plans on having sex with a woman, or a woman who ever plans on having sex with a man, read this article.

Alito edged closer to suggesting that he might be willing to reconsider Roe if he is confirmed to the high court, refusing, under persistent questioning by Democrats, to say that he regards the 1973 decision as "settled law" that "can't be reexamined." In this way, his answers departed notably from those that Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. gave when asked similar questions during his confirmation hearings four months ago....

During Roberts's confirmation hearings, he, too, was reluctant to disclose how he would vote if asked to overturn Roe . But during the 2003 hearing on his nomination to the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, he had said he viewed the ruling as settled law.

And during Roberts's hearings to become the nation's chief justice, Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) had asked, "Do you mean settled for you, settled only for your capacity as a circuit judge or settled beyond that?" Roberts replied: "Well, beyond that, it's settled as a precedent of the court."

After his exchange with Alito yesterday, Durbin told reporters: "Sam Alito would not use those same words. It really, I'm afraid, leaves open the possibility that we are considering the nomination of a justice who will change 30 years of law in this country, a dramatic change to the American society."


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