Washington | In the spring of 1985, a 35-year-old lawyer in the Justice Department, Samuel Alito, cautioned the Reagan administration against mounting a frontal assault on Roe v Wade, the landmark ruling that declared a constitutional right to abortion. The Supreme Court was not ready to overturn it, he said, so urging it to do so could backfire.

In a memo offering advice on two pending cases that challenged state laws regulating abortion, Alito advocated focusing on a more incremental argument: The court should uphold the regulations as reasonable. That strategy would “advance the goals of bringing about the eventual overruling of Roe v Wade and, in the meantime, of mitigating its effects”.