Misled?

WorldbyStorm

Nov 4

In a private meeting in 2005, Samuel Alito, who would become the US supreme court justice who wrote the ruling removing the federal right to abortion, assured Ted Kennedy of his respect for Roe v Wade, the landmark 1973 court decision which made the procedure legal in the US.

"I am a believer in precedents," Alito said, according to diary excerpts reported by the Massachusetts senator's biographer, John A Farrell, on Monday. "People would find I adhere to that."

Alito and Kennedy met regarding Alito's nomination by George W Bush. The nominee also said: "I recognise there is a right to privacy. I think it's settled."

And:

Seventeen years later, in his ruling removing the right to abortion, via the Mississippi case Dobbs v Jackson, Alito said the entitlement had wrongly been held to be protected as part of the right to privacy.

And:

The late Kennedy, a younger brother of US president John F Kennedy, who spent 47 years in the Senate, also questioned Alito about a memo he wrote as a justice department clerk in 1985, outlining his opposition to Roe. Alito told Kennedy he had been trying to impress his bosses.

"I was a younger person," Alito said. "I've matured a lot."

According to Farrell, Alito told Kennedy his views on abortion were "personal" but said: "I've got constitutional responsibilities and those are going to be the determining views".

And not just Ted Kennedy. For…

Susan Collins, a Maine Republican but a supporter of abortion rights, said she had been misled in a meeting similar to that between Kennedy and Alito.

Collins said that in the 2018 meeting, when asked about Roe, Brett Kavanaugh told her to "start with my record, my respect for precedent, my belief that it is rooted in the constitution and my commitment to the rule of law" and added: "I understand precedent and I understand the importance of overturning it."

In 2022, Kavanaugh sided with Alito and three other conservatives in removing the right to abortion.

The following is priceless: