The shift, they claim, is backed up by evidence collected in 1995 and 2002 that compares the number of U.S. women of childbearing age giving birth to babies they didn’t want when initially conceived. Though Guttmacher declined to discuss the findings before the official results have been published, assumptions are already being made about the greater societal implications.

Maybe it’s just us, but isn’t it a no-brainer to assume that as long as women continue to face greater restrictions on abortion care, the numbers of abortions will continue to decrease? Karen Pearl, interim president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, says the study has more to say about “access to family planning, medically accurate sex education and access to abortion than it does about societal values.” Parental notification, intimidation at clinics, harassment and government restrictions all impact access to choice. And the past decade has brought a staggering reduction in the number of abortion providers, from 2,400 in 1992 to 1,800 in 2000.

So while it may be reassuring to think all these babies are more wanted after birth, for their sake, we just hope it’s true.

Opinion polls predict Bachelet as the clear winner, indicating that the country is ready to leave a male-dominated and violent political past well behind. Bachelet, a mother of three children, whom she raised alone, is — gasp! — also single. The former defense and health minister advocates for women in the workplace in hopes of lowering poverty rates. She also vows to make at least half of her cabinet female, as well as increase government pensions, boost college loans and revamp education, which currently schools only one-third of children in the country.

According to Rafael Gumucio, a Chilean journalist writing in the Times, Chile is ready for a cultural transformation: “The Pandora’s box of Chilean politics has been flung wide open: nowadays it isn’t at all strange to see an ultraconservative Catholic candidate signing his name on a transvestite’s legs as a publicity stunt, nor is it odd to hear Ms. Bachelet talk about how hard it is to find Mr. Right.”

Señora Presidente, anyone? We’ll drink to that.

“My plan calls:

“To immediately redeploy U.S. troops consistent with the safety of U.S. forces;
“To create a quick reaction force in the region;
“To create an over-the-horizon presence of Marines;
“To diplomatically pursue security and stability in Iraq.”

Sen. Joseph Biden Jr. of Delaware, December 2005
(In a statement to Salon)

Norm Kurz, the senator’s communication director, said that despite some calls for an immediate pullout from Iraq, Sen. Biden has “never believed in a specific timeline” for a troop drawdown. “Pulling out precipitously is a problem,” Kurz says, relaying Biden’s view, “if what we leave behind is a haven for terrorists.”

Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana, December 2005
(In a statement to Salon)

Sen. Bayh’s communication director, Dan Pfeiffer, said that while the senator believes a strategy to bring home the troops needs to be implemented, any plan must be “driven by events on the ground.” Bayh, Pfeiffer said, rejects the mandatory withdrawal from Iraq by “any specific date.”

Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York, Nov. 29, 2005

“I do not believe that we should allow this to be an open-ended committment without limits or end. Nor do I believe that we can or should pull out of Iraq immediately. I believe we are at a critical point with the December 15th elections that should, if successful, allow us to start bringing home our troops in the coming year, while leaving behind a smaller contingent in safer areas with greater intelligence and quick strike capabilities. This will advance our interests, help fight terrorism and protect the interests of the Iraqi people.”

Former Sen. Tom Daschle of South Dakota, Dec. 7, 2005

Daschle is now touting a strategy he has developed in cooperation with the Center for American Progress, which calls for “bringing home the first 80,000 troops beginning this January and no later than the end of 2006. The plan redeploys 20,000 American troops to Afghanistan to help finish our job there, including the capture of Osama bin Laden. Finally, the plan calls for the last 70,000 American troops to come home by the end of 2007.”

Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, Nov. 30, 2005

“This debate is not about an artificial date for withdrawal … No one is talking about running in the face of a challenge. We’re talking about how to win, how to succeed, how do you best achieve our goals? That’s the choice here…

“Forty-five percent of the Iraqi people believe it is all right to injure and kill Americans. Eighty percent of the Iraqi people want us to withdraw. The largest portion of the Iraqi elected officials have now voiced themselves publicly saying they believe the United States needs to reduce its presence and withdraw.

“So what the president did not acknowledge today at all is that the presence of our troops itself is a part of the current reality on the ground that presents food for the insurgency. And you need to reduce that presence over a period of time in order to be able to succeed, not fail.”

Former Sen. Max Cleland of Georgia, December 2005
(In a statement to Salon)

Michael Duga, Cleland’s spokesman, e-mailed a statement saying that “Sen. Cleland believes that Americans should support John Kerry’s plan for Iraq. We can remove 20,000 troops after the December 15th elections, and then continue to bring our soldiers home over the next 12 to 15 months as Iraqi citizens begin to defend their country and we achieve a political settlement among Iraqi factions. Our strategic redeployment is imperative so we can dedicate the necessary resources to kill or capture Osama Bin Laden and his terrorist cadre who attacked us September 11th, 2001.”

Rep. Henry Waxman of California, December 2005
(In a statement to Salon)

“The planning for the war was botched and the occupation appears to Iraqis as unending, which has become a magnet for insurgency and terrorism. Without strong leadership by the new Iraqi government, a de facto civil war will take place. We cannot do the job for them; they must do it for themselves. I support a withdrawal of troops as soon as possible, with a specific timetable so the Iraqis know they must take over.”

Rep. Harold Ford Jr. of Tennessee, December 2005
(In a statement to Salon)

According to Rep. Ford’s communication director, Corrine Ciocia, the congressman “doesn’t support an immediate pullout” anytime soon. Instead, he suggests that President Bush bring in a new national security team, renounce permanent military bases in Iraq, and start an international fund to build hospitals and schools across the Middle East as part of a broad plan to “finish the effort in Iraq.” Ford said recently that “we need some new ideas and strategies to squash or suppress this insurgency in Iraq so we can plant the seeds for democracy and, most important, bring our troops home.”

Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut, Nov. 22, 2005

The United States should “consider pulling troops out soon after the Dec. 15 elections. Get surrounding countries, particularly Arab League nations, to do more to help broker peace between Iraq’s warring factions. Get NATO more involved in training troops and require the president to set up ‘estimated dates’ for pulling out troops.”

Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada , November 2005

“We demand that the Intelligence Committee and other committees in this body with jurisdiction over these matters carry out a full and complete investigation immediately as called for by Democrats in the committee’s annual intelligence authorization report. Our troops and the American people have sacrificed too much. It is time this Republican-controlled Congress put the interests of the American people ahead of their own political interests.”

Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, Oct. 27, 2005

Sen. Feinstein believes that continued American military presence in Iraq has become a liability and a reduction of American troops is necessary to avoid further sectarion violence. “America needs to change course, reassess its mission in light of this escalating insurgency, place more responsibility on Iraq for a negotiated settlement, and begin a structured drawdown of American forces.”

Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, Nov. 29, 2005

“What a colossal mistake it would be for America’s bipartisan political leadership to choose this moment in history to lose its will, and in the famous phrase, to seize defeat from the jaws of the coming victory … If all goes well, I believe we can have a much smaller American military presence there by the end of 2006 or in 2007, but it is also likely that our presence will need to be significant in Iraq or nearby for years to come.”

Former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, Nov. 11, 2005

“We’ve reached the point where the large number of our troops in Iraq hurts, not helps, our goals. Therefore, early next year, after the Iraqi elections, when a new government has been created, we should begin redeployment of a significant number of troops out of Iraq. This should be the beginning of a gradual process to reduce our presence and change the shape of our military’s deployment in Iraq.”

Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa, December 2005

“Even now that sovereignty in Iraq has been turned over to an interim government, much work remains. And the U.S. military will continue to bear much of the burden, as foreign armies remain hesitant to send large numbers of troops to Iraq. U.S. forces will continue to be charged with the task of protecting Iraqi civilians, as well as international personnel.”

Rep. Ike Skelton of Missouri, Oct. 24, 2005

Rep. Skelton currently supports a plan that emphasizes a “strategic redeployment” of American forces where for every three Iraqi brigades that attain Level 1 readiness — “the capability to plan and fight independently without any assistance from U.S. forces” — one American brigade will be redeployed from Iraq. “I realize there are a variety of reasonable ways to look at benchmarks for strategic redeployment, but I think any of them must clearly link to the development of Iraqi Security.”

Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida , Nov. 23, 2005

Dan McLaughlin, a spokesman for Sen. Nelson, said the senator “feels in regard to establishing a timetable for troop withdrawal that is not the way to go … At this point, the long-term national security interests are paramount issues, and cutting and running in Iraq is not the solution.”

Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, Nov. 23, 2005

Sen. Schumer calls for a “three-state solution,” geographically dividing the Sunnis, Kurds and Shiites. “I wouldn’t make it into three countries”, he said, “but I would make it into three autonomous regions … We’ll say to them, You govern yourselves. We’re not going to tell you who to pick. You govern yourselves. I think that is a plan that could work. And I think it’s going to gain currency.”

Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Nov. 30, 2005

“I happen to believe that we can only draw down when we have a plan in place that tells us whether we’re getting to our stated objective. And when our stated objective is one that we can measure against, then I think we can start to have a timetable to draw down troops. Otherwise I think it’s a timetable by another name.”

Rep. Robert Wexler of Florida, Nov. 21, 2005

Rep.Wexler supports a six-month phased withdrawal after the December elections and endorses Rep. John Murtha’s legislation, “which calls for a ‘withdrawal at the earliest practicable date’ in addition to the deployment of a U.S. rapid-reaction force in a neighboring country such as Kuwait. This ‘over the horizon’ presence is intended to ensure regional stability, assist Iraq in its continuing fight against terror, and reduce the likelihood of civil war.”

Rep. Tom Lantos of California, Nov. 21, 2005

Rep. Lantos, the ranking member on the House International Relations Committee, recently sent out a letter to thousands of his constituents stating that the United States should draw down its troop levels in tandem with the training of the Iraqi military. “Given the present pace of training Iraqi security forces, it should be our goal to begin reducing U.S. forces in the spring of 2006 and progressively to diminish the U.S. military presence in Iraq as the growing capability of Iraqi security forces warrants.”

Judge Alito is clearly qualified, professionally, to sit on the Supreme Court. He has a strong background as a prosecutor and government attorney, long experience on the federal bench, and the kind of elite academic credentials (Princeton, Yale) that Harriet Miers lacked — and that elitist conservative commentators like George Will appear to value highly. As a result, the only real reason for senators to oppose his nomination is ideology. Alito is an extremely conservative judge, certain to provoke strong opposition from liberal voices in the Senate. Thus, his nomination gives Bush exactly what he needs politically: a knock-down fight with liberals, whom he has been beating up successfully his entire career. With Miers, Bush struggled to articulate his reasoning. Here, he has his decades-old script memorized, down to the applause lines. Bush, in short, will be back in his comfort zone, attacking “left-wing obstructionists.”

Why Alito? I think Bush’s choice was dictated by politics. Alito is conservative enough to win support from the far right, and to guarantee opposition from the left. At the same time, I think the White House realized that his record — which Alito appears to have carefully guarded over the years — will probably be less offensive to Democratic and Republican moderates alike than many of the alternatives — lightning rods like [J. Michael Luttig] Luttig or [Priscilla] Owen or [Edith Brown] Clement. For this reason, the nomination is more likely to end in a Bush victory than that of a potentially even more controversial nominee. As for his gender, I think the White House views it as a positive. What will rally his conservative troops more than a fight with Barbara Boxer over gender equity? All things considered, Alito is a pretty savvy choice.

Erwin Chemerinsky, expert on constitutional law; professor of law and political science, Duke University

Samuel Alito is one of the most conservative federal judges in the United States and almost certainly would be a vote on the Supreme Court to undermine basic constitutional rights which have been protected for decades. In selecting Alito, President Bush has chosen a nominee to please the right-wing critics of Harriet Miers and to fulfill his campaign promise to select a justice very much like Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas. Senators of both parties must make clear that Alito is far out of the judicial mainstream and thus is unacceptable for a seat on the nation’s highest court.

The importance of this seat on the Supreme Court for the future of constitutional law cannot be overstated. Sandra Day O’Connor was the fifth vote on the Court to protect abortion rights, to allow remedies for racial injustice, to limit government support for religion, and to permit the government to regulate campaign finance to prevent corruption. In each of these areas, Alito is a virtually certain vote to change the law. As a Court of Appeals judge, Alito has a consistently conservative record on issues such as abortion, states’ rights, separation of church and state, and employment discrimination laws.

President Bush easily could have chosen a more moderate Republican, in the mold of Sandra Day O’Connor, and who would have easily received confirmation by the Senate. But instead, Bush deliberately chose to politicize the process by selecting an individual who he knew would draw intense opposition from Democrats and hopefully moderate Republicans as well. The Senate must deny Alito confirmation and insist that President Bush select a more moderate individual for this key seat on the Supreme Court.

Samuel B. Casey, executive director, Christian Legal Society

In terms of his judicial experience, Judge Alito is probably the most qualified jurist that has been nominated to this bench in 70 years. He has personally heard cases and therefore had to rule in almost every aspect of American constitutional law, as well as many statutory schemes the federal court has been called to interpret. By virtue of how long he has been doing it, Judge Alito has been exposed to statutory law as well as constitutional law. While a potential Bush nominee like Priscilla Owen had the full support of Christian Legal Services as well, she was a state court judge, and thus interpreted federal law from a state appellate perspective, and she did this for just a couple months. She would be a fine candidate, but in terms of experience, Justice Alito is the most qualified. He’s a great nominee; a very fair, amiable person who asks great questions of both sides, is very well prepared and writes very, very well. Most Americans should love this guy.

Zachary Carter, former U.S. attorney; chairman of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Committee on Judicial Selection

The challenge that this poses for the Senate Judiciary Committee is to determine not just what Alito’s ideological leaning is, but whether or not he could be considered a conservative activist judge. Conservatives have been largely successful in defining the term activist judge to the point where it has become synonymous with liberal or left-leaning judges. But it is just as possible for a conservative to be an activist judge.

I have not studied Alito’s record closely, but he has been described as a person who is reflexively conservative in his rulings. He has been nicknamed “Scalito,” in reference to Judge Antonin Scalia, and frankly, in my view that is shorthand for a jurist who many consider to be an activist judge — who reaches on occasion beyond established precedent to impose his core conservative beliefs. Regarding important issues like abortion, the more activist a judge is, the more likely it will be that he will reach for an opportunity to extend the law in a way that’s consistent with his own philosophy.

Ironically, Sandra Day O’Connor, the judge whom Alito would replace, was the ideal non-activist conservative judge. In many respects O’Connor stands as a model of the kind of judge that conservatives should be supporting, because she was reliably conservative — but she would not impose her own conservative values in the face of clear established precedent of the Supreme Court, or the clear wording of federal statute.

As for whether Alito will be confirmed, frankly, that is an issue of democratic will and conviction and spine. Democrats had very little to do with the withdrawal of the Miers nomination. She pretty much self-destructed. This will require a certain amount of scrutiny and courage by Democrats and it remains to be seen whether they will ask the kinds of searching questions to determine whether Alito is a conservative judicial activist, or rather a judge committed to the rule of law who happens to be conservative.

Richard D. Friedman, expert on the history of the Supreme Court; professor of law, University of Michigan

I think this is a good appointment, a good nomination from the president’s standpoint, though it’s risky. It’s obviously a different approach from the Miers nomination, which was a stealth nomination — a candidate the president thinks he knows, and about whom relatively little information is available.

In light of the right wing’s hostility to the nomination of Harriet Miers, Bush is opening himself up to a fight that he probably concluded he had to take. I don’t think at this point he relishes a fight, though he’s not the type of president who minds one, either. The question is whether Democrats and some moderate conservatives will have the stomach to force a debate on ideological grounds.

I don’t think there’s a lot about this nominee that the president knows that the Senate doesn’t. Much more than Miers, his record is an open book and there are going to be lots of challenges on ideological grounds. The president hoped in the case of Miers that this kind of debate could be muffled. It failed in part because of ideological considerations from both sides, and in part because she didn’t have the necessary stature.

But in this case there’s no doubt about Alito’s stature. This is the type of résumé one hopes to see for a Supreme Court nominee. He’s had senior positions in the solicitor general’s office and has been an appellate judge for 15 years. He’s a very smart guy, familiar with constitutional law, who takes a very fair, judicial approach.

Abortion, of course, is a big issue with this nomination. The irony is that if what’s left of Roe v. Wade were overruled, it would be much less of a big deal than if the affirmative action ruling in Grutter v. Bollinger [which upheld the affirmative-action admissions policy of the University of Michigan Law School] were overturned. The Grutter v. Bollinger decision was a 5-4 decision with Sandra Day O’Connor in the majority. If there’s a similar case and both Roberts and Alito go with the former dissenters, you’ve got five votes the other way.

If Roe were overruled the matter would be left to the states. The states could then ban abortion — but I think most of them wouldn’t. And in some of those states where the state legislatures would choose to severely limit abortion rights by law, effective access to abortion is already limited. And it would be the greatest mobilizing force for the pro-choice movement ever, while it would be a very divisive event for conservatives, since there are many pro-choice Republicans. And that in itself might have a very significant impact in legislative elections in 2006. Legislative elections all throughout the country would be run on abortion, and that plays to the advantage of the Democrats.

Grover Norquist, Republican strategist; president of Americans for Tax Reform

Karl Rove cleverly offered up Harriet Miers to depress the base, so that when we got Alito, everyone was four feet off the ground ecstatic, as opposed to saying, “thats what we reasonably expected.” They didnt plan it this way, of course. But thats the effect it has. Everybody is so pleased, everybody is so happy. Alito is one of seven or eight Bo Derek 10s that were out there, for the purposes of judicial philosophy.

All anyone on the right is asking for is someone who will interpret the law fairly. We dont need them to move the ball down the court. We will go win the House and Senate seats to do what we need to do. What we need are judges who wont steal it from us. We will pass legislation and we need a judge who can read it and not make stuff up.

Getting the Democrats to come back into the fight is exactly the kind of thing that pushes up conservative numbers and pushes down liberal numbers. This is known territory. We win this fight. And the mushy moderates in the middle like a guy whos really smart. They want a competent guy, they get a competent guy.

The right is united, because all parts of the right want the same thing. Were perfectly happy to have someone who simply reads the constitution and the law, preferably laws written in the United States, not this European stuff. And the left is also united. And since we have slightly more people than them, we win.

As for why Bush didnt pick a woman with similar credentials to Alito, I dont know. Ive heard speculation. Ive heard that Alito is particularly well-liked by the head of the judiciary committee, Sen. Arlen Specter. When they first nominated Antonin Scalia, the Italians and New Yorkers really liked that, and that brought us some odd support.

Ralph Neas, president of People for the American Way

I think this is probably the most important and controversial Supreme Court nominee since Robert Bork in ’87 and Clarence Thomas in ’91. We’re asking senators not to take a position until the hearings. With Roberts we did not take a position until five weeks after the nomination, because we had to go through thousands of pages of documents.

This time we were able to frame the debate and define the issues immediately. We need to make sure people understand that this is not a mainstream conservative like Sandra Day O’Connor but a right-wing judicial activist in the mold of Antonin Scalia and Thomas and Bork. These people just have a radically different interpretation of the Constitution.

I actually think that because Alito is so extreme, there is a good chance we can get to 51 votes against the nomination, because there are a lot of moderate and even conservative Republicans who don’t want to turn back the clock on privacy issues, civil rights issues, environmental protection and a woman’s reproductive freedom and reproductive health. But we would certainly recommend that all parliamentary procedures, including the filibuster, should be available for use against the nomination. This is only the second time in 70 years that the court has been evenly divided on many major constitutional issues.

As for why the president didn’t nominate a woman with similarly conservative views, that’s a good question. I don’t know the answer. We certainly hoped that Latinos and women would be considered. But it’s a real mystery, considering what the president and so many others had said about diversity, how we ended up with John Roberts, and now Samuel Alito, because there are a lot of mainstream convervatives out there who are female and people of color, as well as right-wing conservatives. So I don’t know what their decision-making process was.

But this is not a litmus test over one issue or two issues or three. What we have now is an epic struggle, a titanic clash, between two competing and radically different judicial philosophies. Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Bork believe the Constitution has been wrongly interpreted for 60 or 70 years. They want to restore the Constitution to its pre-New Deal incarnation. If Alito replaces O’Connor, a maintream conservative, he could literally be a walking constitutional amendment, turning back the clock on a wide array of issues going back decades.