The Supreme Court’s most consequential conservative justice is presenting the post-Dobbs era as a test of constitutional principle—but his defense also underscores how deeply the ruling has destabilized public trust in the court.

In interviews promoting his book, Justice Samuel Alito defended the 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade as an act of judicial courage rather than political intervention. He said he expected the ruling to anger those who believe abortion is constitutionally protected, but called the leak of the draft opinion “totally unprecedented in the history of the country.” He added that it “very predictably made the five of us in the majority targets for assassination.”¹

That account places the emphasis on threats against the justices and the risks of deciding divisive cases. Alito described the pandemic as a “stress test” for constitutional rights, warning that many people had been willing to downgrade protections for speech and religious exercise.¹ The framing is institutional: the court, in his telling, is facing pressure from activists and politicians while attempting to apply enduring legal principles to new disputes.

The CBS interview offered a broader political contrast. Alito said criticism of the court has become bipartisan, pointing to harsh attacks from both Presidents Biden and Trump. Yet he rejected the idea that the justices serve a political movement: “We are not part of any political movement, and we are not attempting to further any political agenda.”²

He also said he had considered retiring but decided he could still contribute. “It’s too hard to predict what the political situation will be,” he said, resisting the argument that a justice should time retirement to preserve a particular ideological majority.²

The tension remains unresolved: Alito portrays judicial independence as courage under threat, while the controversy surrounding Dobbs reflects a court whose decisions increasingly place constitutional authority—and legitimacy—at the center of political conflict.