YDS Statement Opposing Judge Alito's Appointment to the Supreme Court

On October 31st President Bush nominated Samuel A. Alito Jr. to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the United States Supreme Court. The Young Democratic Socialists of America are opposed to this nomination on the grounds that judge Alito's pernicious conservative ideology poses a threat to both civil rights and civil liberties. If we don't stop Alito from joining the bench we risk decades of suffering from his reactionary legal stances on workplace protections, affirmative action, church-state separation, executive power, voting rights and more. Each of these issues warrant careful attention. However, for the sake of this statement, we will focus on the serious threat we believe Judge Alito poses to women's reproductive rights. As young people fighting for democracy, human rights, and collective liberation, we cannot support any nomination that could diminish the reproductive freedoms of our sisters. While the commitment to uphold Roe v. Wade is but the tip of the iceberg, it is an important minimum standard for a Supreme Court nominee's commitment to women's rights. We reject all barriers to women's liberation, as we reject all oppression based on race, class, sexual orientation and age.

Every woman must have the right to make the critical decision of whether or not to carry a pregnancy to term. Without this right to control their own bodies, women become mere vessels and risk being truly second-class citizens. As democratic socialists, we fight for a world where all women have genuine access to abortion (free and without shame), as well as the right to control their own sexual and reproductive lives. This means full access to comprehensive, LGBT friendly sex education for teens and adults; an end to racist involuntary sterilization programs and access to self controlled contraceptives; free health care for all; strong maternity and paternity leave laws for all workers as well as free childcare for women who work outside of the home; and government support for all women who do choose to have a child, through expanded access to welfare and other social programs.

Alito's stance with regards to woman's reproductive freedom is well documented. In his application for a position in the Reagan administration, Alito revealed that he would not protect the reproductive rights of women. "I am particularly proud of my contributions in recent cases in which the government has argued in the Supreme Court... that the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion," he wrote (www.washtimes.com/national/20051114-015136-2101r.htm). He even went as far as to outline a plan to chip away at the landmark decision upholding the legality of abortion, Roe v. Wade, in the Thornburgh memo. The memo outlines the ways in which the rights provided by Roe can be gradually diminished and declares that this method would be the most effective in overturning the monumental decision (http://www.plannedparenthood.org/pp2/portal/files/portal/media/alito-thornburgh.pdf).

Further indications of Alito's stance include his dissenting opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey as a member of the three judge panel in the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, which he reviewed before the case reached the Supreme Court. The case was concerning the constitutionality of putting restrictions on abortions. Alito dissented in support of restrictions on abortions (http://news.findlaw.com/nytimes/docs/alito/ppcasey102191opn.html#alito).
The Young Democratic Socialists oppose this stance by Alito because these restrictions deliberately make it more difficult for women to obtain abortions. Access barriers disproportionately affect women of color, poor women and young women. Current abortion restrictions include:

· The Hyde Amendment, targeting poor women: In a 1976 decision, Congress passed this amendment which excludes abortion from the comprehensive health care services provided to low income people through Medicaid. This decision has changed abortion from being every woman's right into a privilege to which only middle and upper class women are entitled.

· Parental Consent Laws, targeting young women: Parental consent laws require young women to obtain permission from their parents in order to undergo an abortion, often causing these women to face substantially negative emotional affects knowing that someone other then themselves controls their body and essentially their entire future.

· Mandatory Waiting Periods, targeting all women: Mandatory waiting periods require a 24-hour or more waiting period before a woman can receive an abortion. This is problematic because it forces a woman to make two trips to a clinic before having an abortion. This creates financial and logistical problems for women, especially those who are low income, employed, young, parenting, or without transportation, particularly since eighty-six percent of counties in the United States have no doctors trained, qualified, and willing to perform abortions.

· Informed Consent Laws, targeting all women: Informed consent laws force abortion providers to present biased and graphic anti-choice propaganda to patients before they consent to an abortion. This propaganda humanizes fetuses (for example, they often force women to sign a form stating that they don't desire to hear the fetal heart beat) and therefore results in women feeling like they "killed a child".

Beyond threatening the reproductive freedoms of all women, Alito's ideology and therefore likely future rulings appear to be in opposition to other fundamental rights that we stand for as democratic socialists. We gather with many other progressive organizations including the AFL-CIO, the NAACP, and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force in rejecting the nomination of Samuel Alito to the United States Supreme Court.

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