Alito is widely perceived as easier to confirm than Luttig, but on the abortion issue he could be more controversial. He wrote a dissent in a 1991 case that would have upheld a Pennsylvania law requiring women to notify their husbands before obtaining an abortion unless they were worried about their safety or believed the husband was not the baby's father.
Luttig has voted to uphold abortion regulations, including a Virginia parental-notification law. But he also wrote in a 2000 case that a Supreme Court decision upholding a woman's constitutional right to an abortion was "super-stare decisis."
I don't think that's a liability at all with public opinion. The Democrats have insisted that nominees not be "outside the mainstream of American values", and I think a ruling like that is well within the mainstream. Even though most Americans aren't rabidly, categorically, and inflexibly anti-abortion, most of them do have a rather serious problem with the practice, and regulations like this would be something I'd bet a very clear majority would be in favor of. I mean, who could object to requiring that a baby's father be NOTIFIED before the baby's about to be killed? Did the law even require his consent?
But he [Luttig] also wrote in a 2000 case that a Supreme Court decision upholding a woman's constitutional right to an abortion was "super-stare decisis."
Right, and as I found out, he also justified it using that hideous phrase, "a woman's right to choose".