Memo: Alito Urged Government to Challenge Roe v. Wade

By Fred Barbash
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 30, 2005; 5:12 PM

Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr. was an architect of the Reagan administration's failed 1985 attempt to have the high court consider overruling Roe v. Wade, according to a memo from the period released today.

Alito, then assistant to the solicitor general, urged his boss to use a case before the court to "make clear that we disagree with Roe v. Wade and would welcome the opportunity to brief the issue of whether, and if so to what extent, that decision should be overruled."