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Civil liberties litigator Harvey Silverglate digs into the Alito file for hints of how the nominee might approach civil liberties issues.
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s.m. koppelman|11.9.05 @ 9:07AM|#
Alito's vigorous advocacy of a spousal notification requirement on women seeking an abortion is an indication of healthy regard for civil liberties how exactly? From a property rights standpoint in that it affirms a husband's ownership of his wife?
|11.9.05 @ 9:25AM|#
Beyond that, the pundits and pols have not even begun to question what is perhaps the most serious liberty-related issue of our time: the president's claim to unfettered authority to conduct a "war on terror" that permits arbitrary arrest and detention, torture, and other horrors. That inquiry should proceed, too, and with great care.
Is Mr. Silverglate purposefully ignoring Doe vs. Groody or is there no connection between deferring to the executive in terms of interpreting warrants to include affidavits allowing for broad searches even when not cited and allowing for arbitrary arrests, detention and torture?
|11.9.05 @ 9:29AM|#
"Not ruling a law unconstitutional" = "vigorous advocacy for," apparently. That's some intellectual honesty for you!
Does anyone have any actual evidence of Alito lobbying for the law, speaking in support of it being needed, morally correct, etc.? You know, stuff that would actually count as "vigorous advocacy?"
Even being pro-choice, I have to say that if this is the argument that NARAL, et al. are going to hang their hats on, they're going to lose. Badly.
|11.9.05 @ 9:42AM|#
Alito's vigorous advocacy of a spousal notification requirement on women seeking an abortion is an indication of healthy regard for civil liberties how exactly?
Unless it's an immaculate conception, it takes 2, and it seems only fair if you will be asking both parties to take a role in financing a kid, you at least tell one of the parties if you will be aborting their genetic decendent. Not that I believe the government should be in the business of regulating spousal communications. I think it's appropriate for spousal notification, just not imposed by government.
From a property rights standpoint in that it affirms a husband's ownership of his wife?
Oh please, we haven't been doing that for a while. It's property rights more akin to a husbands partial ownership of the embryo.
|11.9.05 @ 9:49AM|#
Unless it's an immaculate conception . . . .
[PET PEEVE ALERT]
That phrase does not mean what you think it means. It's the theological concept that Mary was conceived immaculate -- i.e., without the stain of original sin.
[/PET PEEVE ALERT]
I wonder how many people hear of Franco Harris's 1972 AFC-winning TD and think "Immaculate Reception" means he caught a football that nobody threw?
|11.9.05 @ 9:50AM|#
One aspect of the article bothers me re: Alito: If you can't pick on the queer wussies in high school without intereference from the school, what fun is it? Particularly since the victim will likely hire a big, somewhat quiet and introspective guy for protection, and they will likely learn a lot about each other over the course of the ordeal.
Would Alito feel that the "Trench Coat Mafia" have set an appropriate model of deterrence for school outcasts everywhere, a la Lott's "More Guns Less Crime", with the Columbine thing?
s.m. koppelman|11.9.05 @ 9:50AM|#
If a husband has a right to a role in abortion decisions on the basis of, erm, property rights to an embryo, does that mean a husband can get the fetus aborted, too, as long as he notifies the wife? Or is it just a spousal veto power? Why?
|11.9.05 @ 9:55AM|#
Snake:
The kid wanted to transfer to another school, because he had some sort of god-given right to a Free Appropriate Public Education(TM). The school district sued because they would have to pay cash money to the district to which the fat nancy-boy had transferred. Alito ruled in the majority that the original school district was incapable of providing a Free Appropriate Public Education(TM), and that the kid could transfer with the original school district picking up the bill.
Frankly, having the state invent a "right" such as a Free Appropriate Public Education(TM) and then a potential Supreme Court justice validating that right seems like a stretch of "civil liberties" to me.
|11.9.05 @ 10:04AM|#
Phil, on the Franco Harris thing: that was beautiful, man.
sm, first, please either update your blog, or stop linking to it in your name field. Second, "vigorous advocacy" isn't exactly fair. He applied the "undue burden" test, finding that the list of exemptions reduced the burden below the threshold. That suggests that he would have found that a law without such exemptions did constitute an undue burden. He still too pro-notification for my tastes, but I don't think you've characterized his thinking fairly.
metalgrid,
There's a big difference between police powers and war powers. A military officer, including the CinC, has lattitude to do a lot of things a cop connot.
|11.9.05 @ 10:06AM|#
Phil, interesting - I just looked that up on wikipedia. Thanks - learn something new every day, even if it is about religion.
|11.9.05 @ 10:06AM|#
Of course let me be clear that I'm kidding about the picking on wussy queers thing. I just saw a chance to set up a "My Bodyguard" reference.
Matt Dillon is almost as good as the guy who plays Buddy Repperton in "Christine"...that guy was a good bully.
|11.9.05 @ 10:20AM|#
Even ignoring my abortion opinion, I have serious qualms about ANYBODY who basically takes the attitude "Government can pass this law so long as it's not an undue burden on citizens." How about, "Government can't pass this law unless it's shown to be absolutely ncessary to our Repiblic?"
fyodor|11.9.05 @ 10:27AM|#
metalgrid,
Whatever the merits of spousal notification, civil liberties are generally considered the protections citizens have against government action. Authorizing the government's involvement in settling what I guess you're calling a private property dispute hardly reflects an opinion or attitude about restricting government powers. Telling us why spousal notification is a good thing does not address that.
|11.9.05 @ 10:34AM|#
I wonder if Alito would also require married men to notify their wives before getting a vasectomy? It's not like it's an undue burden on them.
|11.9.05 @ 10:44AM|#
Fyodor,
Not that I disagree with your interpretation of civil liberties, but I guess where the legislature in that case screwed up was in attempting to place the restriction on abortion as opposed to modifying marriage contract law and inserting abortion notification there instead. Considering that one of the legitimate functions of government is the enforcement of contracts, it would be a valid method. Now, taking your interpreation of civil liberties and applying it to a contractual situation, I can see it as being a valid imposition, the same way as alimony and the like. At that point, it ceases to be an issue of civil liberties (since it's not a case of protection against government) but rather a contractual agreement between two parties.
|11.9.05 @ 10:50AM|#
"I wonder if Alito would also require married men to notify their wives before getting a vasectomy? It's not like it's an undue burden on them."
In what way is a vasectomy like an abortion? I don't get it.
|11.9.05 @ 10:52AM|#
Beyond that, the pundits and pols have not even begun to question what is perhaps the most serious liberty-related issue of our time: the president's claim to unfettered authority to conduct a "war on terror" that permits arbitrary arrest and detention, torture, and other horrors. That inquiry should proceed, too, and with great care.
Who cares about that. If you are not a terorist you don't got anything to worry about. As long as he supports the roes we are OK. aborting is a god given right. Can anyone who nows about biology explain how a embrio can be alive if it is not wanted? If it is wanted it is alive, if it is not then it becomes not alive. this is a scientifficaly proven fact.
|11.9.05 @ 10:53AM|#
In what way is a vasectomy like an abortion? I don't get it
The man does something to HIS body which will impact his spouse's child-making ability.
|11.9.05 @ 10:54AM|#
Greetings, Sara. Tell Fred, Jane and Juanita that Jennifer says "hello."
MP|11.9.05 @ 10:58AM|#
Phil, interesting - I just looked that up on wikipedia. Thanks - learn something new every day, even if it is about religion.
I second that.
|11.9.05 @ 11:01AM|#
Jennifer, some states do require spousal consent -- not even notification, actual consent -- from a spouse before a sterilization procedure is performed on either gender.
When I got mine done, 10 years ago in Ohio, I was presented with a notification/indemnity waiver form for my wife to sign. I was not legally required to have it signed, but it was strongly suggested by the hospital that if I didn't, they would not be comfortable performing the operation.
|11.9.05 @ 11:03AM|#
Phl--
Makes sense to me, though I still oppose it on matters of principle. I'm just wondering Alito's take on it.
|11.9.05 @ 11:07AM|#
"The man does something to HIS body which will impact his spouse's child-making ability."
Yeah, that analogy isn't so hot.
An abortion isn't something a woman does to her body to impact her child-making abilities. An abortion is something done to a fetus that (generally) doesn't have an effect on her child-making abilities just on her ability to pop out that one particular child.
|11.9.05 @ 11:13AM|#
Yeah, that analogy isn't so hot. An abortion isn't something a woman does to her body to impact her child-making abilities. An abortion is something done to a fetus that (generally) doesn't have an effect on her child-making abilities just on her ability to pop out that one particular child.
Certainly it's not a perfect analogy--I'd say a vasectomy's long-term repercussions on the spouse are much more noticeable than an abortion's--yet in both cases it shows how even people who generally think (even more strongly than I do) the government should be as "hands-off" as possible in regards to its citizens, get huffy enough about matters of childmaking to carve out several exceptions to their hands-off-government rule.
Dave W.|11.9.05 @ 11:46AM|#
"Government can't pass this law unless it's shown to be absolutely ncessary to our Repiblic?"
Because then the child support laws would be overturned and women's groups would get their panties in a knot about that. Careful what you wish for.
|11.9.05 @ 12:07PM|#
Because then the child support laws would be overturned and women's groups would get their panties in a knot about that. Careful what you wish for.
Dave, seriously, why are you being so trollish here? I'm talking about early-term abortions and you keep pretending I'm arguing in favor of exploitative man-harming child-support laws.
|11.9.05 @ 12:54PM|#
Whoops. When I commented about Dave being trollish "here," I confused this with the other Alito thread.
Larry A|11.9.05 @ 2:12PM|#
The NARAL position that, "If I decide to keep a child I'll garnish the father's wages for 20 years, but he doesn't deserve notice before I flush one" seems a tad one-sided.
|11.9.05 @ 2:42PM|#
Larry A,
I get to have an orgasm, and she can decide between childbirth and abortion is pretty one-sided, too. That's the biological reality, though - women are the ones with the wombs.