Alito’s abortion drug ruling puts his liberal critics to shame

© Provided by Washington Examiner FILE – Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito testifies before the House Appropriations Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, March 7, 2019. In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, five justices voted to overturn Roe — Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas. All five were raised Catholic. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

When Justice Samuel Alito issued an administrative stay last Friday that temporarily keeps an abortion drug legal, he exposed the Left for lying about his jurisprudence.

ABORTION BATTLE HEATS UP NATIONWIDE

For years, the Left has smeared Alito as a partisan hack rather than the careful adherent to text that he actually is. According to this portrayal, Alito is “perpetually aggrieved,” an “angry man” waging a “crusade against a secular America,” one who is “ambitious and extreme,” and “zealous” with a “snide pugnaciousness.” And, in a prototypical disparagement, former federal law clerks David Lat and Zachary Shemtob distinguished Alito even from other high-court conservatives by accusing him of being a “blanket partisan” who “consistently votes for the conservative policy outcome in any given case.”

In the conservative legal world, nothing could be a bigger insult than to be accused of enacting policy preferences rather than following the law as written.

Alito’s April 14 order provided the most recent proof that the insult was baseless. Alito is thought to be personally pro-life, and his jurisprudence consistently has favored the anti-abortion side of most court disputes. If he were a mere partisan working to achieve his favored own “policy outcome,” he would have surely allowed a lower-court injunction to remain in place against the abortion drug mifepristone. Even five more days of the injunction, Alito could reason, might give some women time to rethink an abortion decision and choose instead to let their babies live.

The truth is that Alito is not what the Left claims he is. He isn’t a partisan or conservative policy crusader. He’s a careful jurist who applies the law without fear or favor. In the mifepristone case, the full Supreme Court is due on Wednesday to consider an appeal of the decision outlawing the drug. The ordinary legal posture in such circumstances is to set aside an injunction favoring one of the parties until the full court can consider the legal arguments in full. Against Alito’s presumed policy preference, he took that usual approach.

Apologies for miscasting him would be in order, but those apologies probably will die aborning.

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Tags: Opinion, Beltway Confidential, Samuel Alito, Supreme Court, Opinion

Original Author: Quin Hillyer

Original Location: Alito’s abortion drug ruling puts his liberal critics to shame