Alito's "Open Mind"

“Open Mind” is Not a Legal Term and Signifies Nothing

Judge Samuel Alito repeatedly refused to answer questions about whether he still holds his 1985 legal view that “the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion.” Instead, he tried to muddy the waters in his Senate Judiciary Committee hearings by pledging to keep “an open mind,” should he be in a position to reconsider precedent on that right.

The news media are trumpeting this statement as if it means something. It doesn’t. In fact, another Supreme Court nominee used this exact language to navigate hearing questions attempting to expose his not-so-secret anti-choice legal views.

In the fall of 1991, during his own hearings, Clarence Thomas said of the right to abortion, “I think that it is most important for me to remain open. I have no agenda. I am open about that important case. I work to be open and impartial on all the cases on which I sit. I can say on that issue and on those cases I have no agenda. I have an open mind, and I can function strongly as a judge
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He went on to say, “I have no agenda, Senator. I have tried to here, as well as in my other endeavors as a judge, remain impartial, to remain open-minded, and I am open-minded on this particular important issue.

As we all know, however, once safely on the Supreme Court, Justice Thomas voted to overturn Roe v. Wade just months later, dissenting in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey – a dissent that likened abortion to polygamy, sodomy, incest and suicide.

So much for an “open mind."

By the way, Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey came to Thomas and the Supreme Court through Samuel Alito's Third Circuit, where Alito too voted to restrict reproductive freedom.