Like many folks, I’ve been disturbed by some of the things I’ve been hearing about SCOTUS nominee Samuel Alito, including previous abortion decisions he’s been involved in.
I recognize, tough, that these opinions may not tell us very much about how he would rule on abortion if placed on the Supreme Court. Lower court judges have to follow Supreme Court precedent, and that means that what they write often doesn’t tell you what they would do if they were elevated to the highest court.
For example, a circuit court judge could not declare abortion unconstitutional or even overturn The Evil Decision. He’s bound by the authority of the Supreme Court. This means that if you hear about him voting to uphold abortion law in a particular case, it may be because he knows that ruling otherwise would clash with what the Supreme Court has established as legal doctrine.
Once he has the change to make that doctrine himself, all bets are off, which is why looking at his overall judicial philosophy is so important.
The same thing plays the other way, though.
Pro-abort forces are up in arms about the fact that Alito once voted to uphold a Pennsylvania statue that had a (watery weak) requirement of spousal notification for a married woman to get an abortion. They’ll use this to try to paint him as a pro-life zealot.
But that doesn’t follow either.
