Harriet Miers Withdraws; President Bush Nominates Samuel Alito to Serve on Supreme Court.

Four days after Harriet Miers withdrew her nomination to serve on the United States Supreme Court, President Bush nominated U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Samuel A. Alito, Jr., to replace Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

Judge Alito has been a member of the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals since 1990. From 1987 to 1990 Alito served as U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey.

In examining his record, there are four principal abortion-related cases. Judge Alito voted in favor of the pro-life side once and against it three times.

In Casey v. Planned Parenthood, he joined with his colleagues on the appeals court in a unanimous opinion upholding most of the pro-life 1989 Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act. Judge Alito would have gone further; he would have upheld the spousal notice provision of the act. (This was the case that the United States Supreme Court later reviewed in Planned Parenthood v. Casey.)

In two of the cases where Judge Alito voted against the pro-life side, he felt bound by the controlling Supreme Court precedent on each issue. One of these cases involved a partial-birth abortion statute. The other was a wrongful death statute that involved the question of Fourteenth Amendment personhood of the unborn child.

The third case involved Pennsylvania rape and incest reporting requirements for Medicaid-funded abortions. Judge Alito was the deciding vote against the pro-life side, basing his decision on his reading of administrative law.