For those who wonder why women pace like caged animals every time they hear "Supreme Court" and "nominee," consider the news. Samuel Alito Jr. is reaching for the robe to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

This is the guy who, in his 1985 application to become deputy to then-Attorney General Edwin Meese, wrote that "The Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion."

And if anyone wondered if he still felt that way, here's Alito's 90-year-old mother on the horn from New Jersey: "Of course he's against abortion," she told The Associated Press.

This we expected. This we knew. Alito is, after all, President Bush's chosen one.

Just as Alito got the blessing of the Senate Judiciary Committee's Republicans on Tuesday, the Bush administration took heat for allowing pesticide testing on children and pregnant women.

Proposed new Environmental Protection Agency rules would prohibit regulators from using something called "intentional exposure research" that involved women and children.

But the research could still be used if the researcher didn't originally intend to submit the results to the EPA.

In other words, the EPA will be happy to use the research. It just doesn't want to know how it was obtained, capisce?

So with the coming confirmation of a pro-life nominee, the administration makes clear that protecting the unborn is one of its priorities. And yet, it makes room for the EPA to use research that may have endangered this same group.

Which leaves women to wonder: Are we and our kids the administration's most valuable citizens or the most vulnerable in its agenda? You want to save us or spray us?

"Simply astonishing," Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., said of the proposed EPA rules.

Simply schizophrenic, too.

"It was one of those, 'Are we crazy?' moments," said LeAnne Moss, executive director of the Women's Funding Alliance. "And how can the administration get away with this?"

I knew that Alito was to meet with our Democratic Sen. Patty Murray on Wednesday, so I called her for the dish.

Murray said she asked Alito "short, open-ended questions," since we all know the Senate Judiciary Committee members were a bunch of microphone hogs at the hearings.

Murray said she asked Alito how she would explain a vote for him to a constituency that is primarily pro-choice. And she asked his thoughts on her favorite Charles Dickens quote: "... The law is a ass."

If it appears the law is asinine, Alito responded, you have to go back and determine where you made a mistake in your interpretation of the law.

"So he's a strict Constitutionalist," Murray told me. "And laws are human. They are written by humans, and how they impact people's lives is an important consideration."

Alito and the EPA are asking women to serve themselves up for an agenda that doesn't make our lives a priority.

Is it any wonder we keep chewing nails and nuggets?

Nicole Brodeur's column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday.

Reach her at 206-464-2334 or nbrodeur@seattletimes.com.

So what if Alito likes the Hawks.

More local news headlines...