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Washington - As a Reagan administration lawyer, Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr. argued forcefully against the high court's landmark decision legalizing abortion and laid out a strategy to overturn Roe vs. Wade.
In a lengthy 1985 memo, Alito - then an assistant solicitor general - urged the Justice Department to defend states seeking to put restrictions on the procedure, saying that the Supreme Court's rulings did not mean that abortion is "unregulable." In particular, he wrote, states should have the right to order doctors to inform patients about potential medical risks and alternatives to the procedure.
"If abortion is a woman's choice, as the court has held, then surely the choice should be informed," Alito wrote.
Such state regulations, he continued, are "preferable to a frontal assault on Roe v. Wade" and could eventually lead the court to reconsider Roe itself.
Alito's critics, including abortion rights advocates, swiftly denounced the memo, saying it showed that the nominee helped lay the groundwork for an attack on abortion rights that continued to this day. Alito's defenders dismissed the import of the memo, saying he was a staff lawyer for a president who was an avowed opponent of abortion.
"The memo shows that Samuel Alito worked in the boiler room as one of the chief engineers of a multi-tiered strategy to reverse Roe v. Wade," said Nan Aron, president of the liberal Alliance for Justice Advocacy group.
"This memo reflects tactical litigation advice that Judge Alito, writing 20 years ago as a deputy lawyer in the office of the solicitor general, gave to his client, the pro-life administration of President Ronald Reagan," said Wendy E. Long, counsel for the conservative Judicial Confirmation Network, another advocacy group.
The 17-page memo was among more than 300 pages of documents relating to Alito that were released Wednesday by the National Archives under a request from the Senate, which is to vote on his nomination in January.
The White House has refused to release documents from Alito's service in the solicitor general's office, arguing that they are privileged. However, the Roe memo and a second on use of unnecessary force by police were among documents sent to the archives in 1999 on which the Clinton administration had waived privilege; the current White House had no authority to restrict their release.
"Internal [solicitor general] office documents are privileged and you can see why if you look at the ones that are in here," a Justice official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "It can be detrimental to the government's ongoing ability to litigate certain issues."
In the second memo, written in May 1984, Alito criticized a federal appellate ruling that police officers in Memphis, Tenn., could be sued for using unnecessary force for shooting a 15-year-old burglary suspect who was attempting to flee a crime scene.
Alito wrote that judges should defer to local authorities' judgment. "All such rules are based upon difficult moral and philosophical choices and a balancing of values that is peculiarly suited for legislative rather than
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