2022 American of the Year: Samuel Alito

As we reach the end of another calendar year the time has come to continue one of the oldest traditions here at my website, the naming of an American of the Year.

With the exception of 2014 and 2015, during a period where I had completely switched the site’s direction to cover only baseball, I have recognized one American citizen at the end of December for their achievements and accomplishments that year.

Previous honorees (complete listing and links to the pieces honoring them found below) have included U.S. Presidents and members of the military, law enforcement, media, sports, faith, health, and political communities.

This year ‘s honoree is the first from the legal/judiciary community. The 2022 American of the Year is U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.

Alito, whose father was an Italian immigrant to America, was born in Trenton, New Jersey and grew up in Hamilton Township. He graduated from Princeton University as well as Yale Law School and also served in the United States Army Reserve.

In February of 1990, Alito was nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (PA/NJ/DE) by President George H.W. Bush and was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate in April 1990. Then in 2005, President George W. Bush nominated Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court. He was confirmed by the Senate in a 58-42 vote on January 21, 2006.

Alito is only the second Italian-American to sit on the highest court in the land. He is just the fifth to sit on the Court who was a Catholic at the time of his confirmation.

All of that is only a brief snapshot of a long and distinguished career as a prosecutor and jurist. And it all brings us to his recognition as the 2022 American of the Year. That honor comes for his pivotal role in deciding and his written opinion in the case of Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

The Dobbs decision reversed two prior SCOTUS decisions of Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992) and basically stated that the United States Constitution does not specifically confer a right to abortion.

Taking the life of an innocent unborn child simply because that life does not fit into the current lifestyle of the mother and/or father, people who in the overwhelming majority of cases get pregnant in the first place by having irresponsible unprotected sex, was obviously not something that was ever considered by the framers of our constitution.

The facts support that is why the vast majority of abortions take place, purely as a method of birth control. Per Abort73.com: “In 2004 the Guttmacher Institute anonymously surveyed 1,209 post-abortive women from nine different abortion clinics across the country. Of the women surveyed, 957 provided a main reason for having an abortion.”

Less than 0.5 percent listed ‘Rape’ as the reason for obtaining an abortion. Another 7% total listed health/medical issues involving the mother or the baby as the reason. Some 92.5% of those obtaining abortions were simply sacrificing a child’s life for their lifestyle.

What the Dobbs decision did not do was to make abortions illegal in America. It simply says that this is an issue not covered by the U.S. constitution, and is thus a state’s rights issue. Each of the 50 now make their own state law on abortion, and the political powers that make such decisions will be accountable to the voters of that state, thus making it actually a “will of the people” determination in each state.

Alito’s role in Dobbs was indeed pivotal. Per Amy Howe at SCOTUSblog:

“Alito began his 79-page opinion by observing that abortion “presents a profound moral issue on which Americans hold sharply conflicting views.” But the Constitution does not refer to abortion at all, Alito stressed. And although the Supreme Court has recognized some constitutional rights as protected by the due process clause, even if they are not expressly mentioned in the Constitution, the right to an abortion is not one of them, Alito explained. Among other things, he noted, the court has required such rights to be “deeply rooted in our Nation’s history.” But until the second half of the 20th century, Alito observed, there was no support in U.S. law for the right to an abortion – indeed, he pointed out, most states regarded abortion as a crime.”

Since the Roe decision in 1973 and through the calendar year 2021 there were more than 63 million total abortions performed in the United States. Applying the results of the 2004 Guttmacher Institute survey, it would mean that more than 58 million babies lives were snuffed out as a lifestyle choice.

Despite the cries of protest to be expected from supporters of wide open, unregulated abortions, only the most cynical would fail to recognize and acknowledge the truth of those hard numbers. If they had the courage of their convictions they would simply embrace the numbers and refer to them as 58 million women making the “choice” which they felt was best for them, writing off the babies as simply a ‘growth’ or ‘cell cluster’ or ‘zygote’ or ‘fetus’ or whatever other dehumanizing term makes it easier on their conscience.

Time may even reveal that women’s health is improved with fewer abortions. “Common ground exists regarding the very basic fact that at least some women do have significant mental health issues that are caused, triggered, aggravated, or complicated by their abortion experience” wrote David C. Reardon in the conclusion of his writing on the topic of abortion and the mental health controversy for the National Institute of Health.

When a draft of Alito’s written opinion was leaked back in May, Michael Brendan Dougherty wrote at the National Review that “Alito’s drafted opinion manages to do what so few essays and treatises taking up this subject can do: be truthful and shrewd.“

When handling such an intense legal hot potato, those two characteristics of truthfulness and perspicaciousness must be utilized. Alito showed his grasp of truth in the writing of the opinion with simple, straightforward sentences such as “’Roe’ was egregiously wrong from the start.“

What Samuel Alito did this year was to stand up for the right to life of hundreds of millions of Americans. Along with his fellow SCOTUS Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett, and with Chief Justice John Roberts concurring, their vote and decision reversed decades of national shame.

For the saving of so many American lives, and for the courage to put a stake through the evil heart of ‘Roe’, something many believed would never happen, SCOTUS Justice Samuel Alito is named as the 2022 American of the Year.

PREVIOUS AMERICANS OF THE YEAR

• 2004 – Pat Tillman
• 2005 – Bill O’Reilly
• 2006 – Billy Graham
• 2007 – Chuck Cassidy
• 2008 – George W. Bush
• 2009 – Glenn Beck
• 2010 – Ron Paul
• 2011 – Seal Team 6
• 2012 – Michael Phelps
• 2013 – Ted Cruz
• 2016 – Kellyanne Conway
• 2017 – Donald Trump
• 2018 – Nikki Haley
• 2019 – Matthew Albence
• 2020 – Kizzmekia Corbett
• 2021 – Joe Manchin