Let’s face it: This Republican-packed Supreme Court was always going to overturn Roe v. Wade. The only question was which B.S. justification it was going to use to do it. I was a little worried they’d cite Godzilla vs. Mothra or one of Ginni Thomas’ texts as precedent just to shove it in our faces, but what actually happened is arguably worse.
The GOP’s decades-long campaign to turn all childbearing-aged women into agency-free Easy-Bake Ovens has now reached its stunning denouement with the leak of Slimin’ Sammy Alito’s draft majority opinion eviscerating 1973’s landmark Roe v. Wade decision. Alito’s opinion is horrifying on its face, but it’s even more problematic upon closer inspection, what with its name-dropping of an old-timey English dude best known for executing witches and blithely defending rape.
From Jezebel:
In case you needed any further proof that the modern anti-abortion movement is an outgrowth of many centuries of virulent misogyny and violence against women, Justice Samuel Alito’s leaked opinion draft striking down Roe v. Wade relies heavily on a 17th century English jurist who had two women executed for “witchcraft,” wrote in defense of marital rape, and believed capital punishment should extend to kids as young as 14.
“Two treatises by Sir Matthew Hale,” Alito wrote in his argument to end legal abortion across America, “described abortion of a quick child who died in the womb as a ‘great crime’ and a ‘great misprision.’ See M. Hale, Pleas of the Crown.”
So how many of you woke up this morning thinking you were guilty of “great misprisions”? Not many, I’ll wager. But clearly, a great many of you are up to your blowsy neck wattles in them.
How interesting that Alito would cite Pleas of the Crown! That’s the text, published in 1736, 60 years after Hale’s death, that defended and laid the foundation for the marital rape exemption across the world.
Pleas of the Crown? Were there no relevant passages from Archie Comics? Honestly, at this point, I’d trust Mr. Weatherbee’s legal judgment far more than Clarence Thomas’.
For instance, there’s this kernel of homespun wisdom from the noble Sir Hale’s full-throated defense of rape: “For the husband cannot be guilty of a rape committed by himself upon his lawful wife for by their mutual matrimonial consent and contract the wife hath given up herself in this kind unto her husband which she cannot retract.”
Now there’s a moral paragon for you! Say, is this kind of thing actually supposed to convince anyone, or is this just the “fuck you, we can do what we want” sort of message we all expected from Boof Kavanaugh and his band of merry Squees? I used to think Supreme Court decisions needed to be based on sound arguments from unimpeachable sources, but after seeing Alito’s big bowl of bonkers I kind of want to drop Hitler’s plum strudel recipe into my next loan application just to see what happens. I mean, why not? We’re just making it all up as we go now, right?
Meanwhile, it’s worth noting that Hale also sentenced two women to death following “one of the most notorious of the 17th century English witchcraft trials.” And now his desiccated antediluvian finger is wagging at witchy women from beyond the grave, thanks to Sam Alito and his personal Wayback Machine.
So maybe it’s time to do something about it. In the wake of all this, it may be hard to decide whether to donate to Democratic candidates, Planned Parenthood, or choice advocacy groups. I can’t answer that for you, of course, but ActBlue is a good place start, as is EMILY’s List.
You know what to do.
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