Abortion Advocates Will Ramp Up Anti-Samuel Alito Ads This Week 
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
January 2, 2006
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — Pro-abortion groups are preparing to ramp up their ad campaign against Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito this week in preparations for hearings in the Senate Judiciary Committee next week.
After initially running ads attacking Alito for his 1985 memos saying he believed there was no right to abortion in the Constitution and urging top Reagan administration officials to press limiting legal abortions, the collection of pro-abortion groups is now focusing on Alito’s integrity.
The plan for the ad campaign will be formally announced on Wednesday but some members of the coalition of groups told the New York Times that the ads will question Alito’s credibility
The groups focused on cases that did not have to do with abortion and attacked Alito’s credibility.
Steve Schmidt, a White House spokesman, told the Times the ads were "outrageous."
"Judge Alito has gone through his entire life with a sterling reputation for integrity," Schmidt said, declaring that the coalition had "decided to throw mud against the wall and see if it sticks."
"They might as well throw in that he was abducted by aliens when he was 15 years old," he said. "It just has no basis in reality."
Ralph Neas, president of People for the American Way, told the New York newspaper the goal of the ads is to convince Americans that Alito has a "right-wing" legal philosophy opposing abortion.
"I think people’s greatest fear is that Judge Alito would side with big government," added Nan Aron, president of the Alliance for Justice. "He would side with allowing government to intrude on individual personal lives."
Meanwhile, groups backing Alito are running targeted ads in northeastern states aimed at rallying Italian-Americans in places where senators may be shaky in their support of his nomination. The Judicial Confirmation Network is also running ads in Arkansas urging African-Americans there to urge their senators to support Alito.
The pro-abortion collection of groups includes People for the American Way, the legal group Alliance for Justice, the A.F.L.-C.I.O., the NAACP, the Sierra Club and single issue pro-abortion groups like Planned Parenthood and NARAL.
The pro-life group Concerned Women for America is planning a news conference on Thursday to highlight numerous pro-life women and women’s groups backing Alito’s nomination.
President Bush nominated the appeals court judge to replace outgoing pro-abortion Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and hearings will begin next week. A vote in the full Senate is tentatively scheduled for January 20, just days before the 33rd anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion.
