SW News: Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito, known for authoring the crucial ruling overturning Roe v. Wade earlier this year, and Amy Coney Barrett received a round of applause from members of the conservative Federalist Society, an influential conservative legal group in the US, last week.

Alito was one of the four justices present at Washington Union Station for the celebration of the 40th Anniversary of the Federalist Society last Thursday. The lawyers’ group has become instrumental in grooming and screening candidates to be nominated to the federal judiciary by Republican presidents.

During the speech, Alito praised the organization for its growth from its modest beginnings to being a highly influential institution.

Alito did not speak anything about the June ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization or its overruling of Roe v. Wade, but as he left the stage, one of the hosts at the party saluted Alito for his intense opinion that crushed Roe’s reasoning.

Steven Markham, founder of the group’s DC chapter said, “The Dobbs decision will forever be an indelible part of Justice Alito’s legacy,” and praised Alito saying, “I don’t know of any decision, on any court, by any judge, of which that judge could be prouder of that legacy.”

The legal organization was founded in 1982 by students at Yale Law School as they sensed conservatives lacking a voice on a liberal-dominated campus. Over the years, chapters were formed at law schools across the country, where students and conservatives would debate the law, thereby helping to connect people and expose them to conservative legal theories.

It was on June 24 that the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade which legalized abortion in the country in 1973. Since then, the nation has been witnessing a pro-life wave in many states with bills curbing abortion in several stages being passed.