Alito and the Right to Privacy, Part 3

According to news reports, Alito told Democratic Senator Richard Durbin that he believes the U.S. Constitution guarantees a right to privacy.

"I think he believes in that fundamental right,'' Durbin is reported as saying. Durbin also said that Judge Alito did not say if he would apply that right in the case of woman's right to an abortion.

While Democratic Senator Ben Nelson said he agreed with a dissenting opinion by Judge Alito in which he wrote that states can require a married woman to notify her husband before getting an abortion, Richard Durbin said that Judge Alito told him that that dissent "was a tough decision'' to write.

"He spent more time worrying over, and working on, that dissent than any other'' opinion he ever wrote, I was glad to hear that," Durbin said.