| Alito and the Future of Young Women |
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10 Jan 2006 President Bush’s latest nominee for the Supreme Court vacancy, Samuel Alito, is 55 years old so his potential impact on the shape of the next 30+ years of the Supreme Court and more importantly, of the nation, is profound. There’s no doubt that young women are among the people who will be most affected by Alito’s confirmation and the legacy of his subsequent decisions. In the past 50 years, legal, political, and social advances have changed the very nature of what it means to be a woman in the United States. Legal recognition of rights to privacy, protection from sexual and gender discrimination, access to a wide range of contraceptive methods for married and single women and adolescents, increased protection against domestic violence, recognition of date rape as a crime, and an overall acceptance of a woman’s right to determine what she will or will not do with her own body, are a few examples of the enormous legal and social policy achievements from the past few decades. With the release last month of the 1985 document revealing Alito’s devotion to various far-right ideologies, women, especially young women, have every reason to be concerned that these hard-fought rights may not be part of their future if Alito is confirmed to the bench. Much is already being done by the current administration to undermine many of our rights and an Alito on the court would likely advance far-right attempts to continue chipping away at decades of progress. It’s clear that Alito’s views and legal opinions would impact far more than a woman’s right to an abortion. Choice is the hot-button issue everyone is talking about but his consistent rulings and opinions extend into all of our households. And, as more records are revealed and cases are scrutinized, Alito’s positions leave little hope that girls in the next 30 years would see many of the rights that I, my mother or my grandmother have been granted. Here are a few examples: Samuel Alito was the sole judge on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals to require women to notify their husbands – even husbands who batter women and children – to obtain an abortion. Alito was again the lone dissenter in a discrimination-in-employment case where he required “smoking gun” evidence making it nearly impossible to prove sexual discrimination. He voted against the Family and Medical Leave Act, denying state employees the right to sue for damages under the Act, effectively blocking the intent of the law from helping individuals support healthy families. In another case, he even supported strip-searching a 10 year old girl. Any judge that would rule on behalf of an abusive husband or father over the safety of the children in the house and support police strip-searching children is not a judge I’d want shaping American policy for future generations of young women. In case after case, Alito has demonstrated he’s a smoking gun with hostility toward women’s rights, civil rights, worker’s rights, separation of church and state, and privacy rights. He has consistently defended large corporations over families and government intrusion over an individual’s rights to privacy. He would vote to reverse Roe v. Wade and would make it more difficult for young women to determine their own lives. With an appointment that could span more than thirty years, putting Alito on the U.S. Supreme Court will ensure a future for young women in a country where discrimination flourishes and rights diminish, reversing 50 years of progress in the United States. Do we want to pass on an America where our daughters can expect to see fewer rights than previous generations? I know I don’t. Crystal Plati Executive Director Choice USA |
