Washington Post Analysis of Judge Samuel Alito

Charles Lane:

Nominee's Reasoning Points to a Likely Vote Against Roe v. Wade

As far as anyone yet knows, Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. has not made any public declaration calling for the overruling of Roe v. Wade , the 1973 Supreme Court decision that recognized a constitutional right to abortion.

At least on the surface, Alito's record as an appeals court judge contains something for everyone. In 1991, he voted to uphold a Pennsylvania law that would have required married women to notify their husbands before getting an abortion. In 1995, however, he cast a deciding vote on a three-judge panel to strike down what abortion rights advocates saw as Pennsylvania's onerous regulations on federally funded abortions for victims of incest or rape. And in 2000, he concurred in a ruling that struck down a New Jersey ban on the late-term procedure called partial-birth abortion by opponents.

Yet for supporters and skeptics, Alito's record is not ambiguous, and it points toward the same conclusion: He would probably vote to strike down Roe . And they say this for a similar reason: It's not the results Alito reached in past cases that matters, it's his legal reasoning...