When Casey exercised his right to choose

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Betsy Newmark alerts us to “a very substantial analysis” of Judge Alito's dissent in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, a case involing a law that required spousal notification before an abortion.

The analyst, attorney and blogger Patterico, says Alito’s dissent will be the Democrats’ primary talking point against Alito.

No doubt Democrats and their MSM and interest group allies will make loud claims that Alito does not understand and respect “choice.”

Their claims should remind us of how the Democrats treated the Casey in Planned Parenthood v. Casey when he exercised his “right to choose.”

Robert Patrick Casey (1932-2000) was a life-long Democrat who rebuilt the party in Pennsylvania and served as that state’s governor from 1987 to 1994.

Shortly after Casey’s death, civil libertarian and writer Nat Hentoff called Casey:

"arguably the most liberal and efficient Democratic governor in the nation. Casey put millions of dollars into job training, helping over 330,000 people, most of them single mothers, out of welfare into solid jobs. And according to Dr. T. Berry Brazelton, a much respected pediatrician and professor, Casey's prenatal and child health care programs were 'a model for the rest of the country.’
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Nonetheless, Casey's party treated him with disdain. As the 1992 Democratic Convention in New York approached, Casey told me he expected, in light of his policy accomplishments and political loyalty, to be a speaker.

But the Democratic Party refused to let Casey speak, because in exercising his right to choose he failed to choose the party line. Hentoff explains:

Casey was not asked to speak. In fact, he and his Pennsylvania delegation were exiled to the farthest reaches of Madison Square Garden--because Casey was pro-life.
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Ron Brown, chief convention organizer and the Democratic Party's symbol of minority inclusion, told Casey, "Your views are out of line with those of most Americans."

Casey had the misfortune of being present during a great shift in the Democratic Party. A mere six years earlier, on September 26, 1986, then-Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas had assured the head of his state's chapter of the National Right to Life Committee, "I am opposed to abortion and to government funding of abortion." But, by the early '90s, the Democrats, seeking the votes of upper-middle-class Republican women, were de-emphasizing economic protection and stressing cultural libertarianism.

Clinton along with almost all other Democratic Party officeholders shifted to the "choice" position.

Clinton was nominated by New York’s Governor Mario Cuomo who brought the crowd to its feet when he declared:

"Bill Clinton believes, as we all here do, in the first principle of our Democratic commitment: the politics of inclusion."

The Democrats missed the unintentional irony of Cuomo's inclusion claim.

Casey would later ask publicly, "What has become of the Democratic Party I once knew?"

The Democratic Party Casey once knew has, for the most part, morphed into the collection of office holders, MSM claques and interest groups we're about to watch tear into Alito in hope of destroying his reputation and chance to serve on the Supreme Court.