Essay by A.H. Scott, Copyright 2022
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“The Alito Draft: An Exercise in Discombobulation
Can you remember your childhood?
I can. Being a city kid, the coolest summer getaway for me was going out to Brooklyn. I can remember being age 8, 9, or 10-ish and going with a bunch of adults and kids from the neighborhood out to Coney Island.
When we arrived at the Stillwell Avenue subway station, some of the group immediately made a b-line for the sandy beach. As for myself, I was excited to go to Astroland and hit some rides and the arcade there. To this day, I even have a souvenir of a small glass vase from winning a game of three-ball knockdown of stacked metal milk-bottles.
Well, the bumper cars were for the more adventurous among us, so I just stood near the exit and watched my friends get bumped around that indoor track. I’m a bit of a scaredy cat, so I wasn’t going to try to be a mini bad-ass and get on the line for the Cyclone. Oh no, not me. Walking around some of the other rides, I can distinctly remember those funky horns of Earth, Wind, and Fire’s “Getaway” filling the air of ‘77 with every ride undulating and spinning with customers’ laughter and screams. So, my mom took me and another one of kids over to one of the other rides. I guess she thought the ride would be less extreme. We ended up in front of ride called the Tilt-A-Whirl.
Let me give you a little description of the ride itself – there are four steps up onto a large, circular platform which you walk onto and then there are about, I would say maybe 6 or 8 custom capsules located around the circumference of the platform, with a steel bench inside of each that would fit 3 people inside with a rebar that would hold us in place. I sat in the middle with my mom and friend sitting on either side of me.
The guy that was operating the ride told us all to hang onto the rebar in front of us and he started the ride to begin slowly. As the capsule began to motion around the platform slowly, it shifted like a slow-moving mixer. The capsule pivoted up and down and all around. But after two revolutions, the operator sped it up. As the ride lived up to its’ name, the three of us felt like we were in a Kitchen Aid blender being prepped like a milkshake. Well, as the ride wound down and the operator released the rebar, each of us moved like molasses out of that capsule and off the platform.
Dizzy, the three of us were, as we had to make our way over to the concession counter for a brief respite. It was a feeling that I never had before. Legs were wobbly like jelly a bit, as was my stomach doing flips. I wasn’t scared in that moment, because I knew my mom and friend were there. I guess as a kid it was a sense that there were things bigger than myself that could take hold. Back then, it was that shake-shake ride. My friend and I got some soda and my mom needed a cup of coffee to settle her nerves.
In that funny and memorable moment from childhood, it was that feeling of being out of sorts of not knowing which way was up and which way was down. You know, that unsure barometer of direction is that sense that came to me when placing my thoughts together for this article. In life, sometimes a feeling that seems ever so disconnected in time and space has a way of tapping into something relative.
And so, from girl to woman, I have found the word to grasping a description of the present – discombobulating.
I fear for my country.
There I said it.
Have you ever felt that sense of being out of place? Not having that sureness of footing for your own being or those around you?
This is how I feel.
Adrift in the present moment of having anchors of your life so deviously demolished and unlinked.
By the end of this month of June, or even the final days of this year of 2022, that which seemed solid shall turn to ash with a few lines of words upon paper.
All this time I was thinking I as a citizen was whole; yet, now to find out that I am only half.
This is so; for, I am just a woman.
I fear for my country.
“Now if I tell you that you suffer from delusions
You pay your analyst to reach the same conclusions
You live your life like a canary in a coal mine
You get so dizzy even walking in a straight line
Canary in a coalmine…” – Gordon Sumner, songwriter (“Canary In A Coal Mine”)[1]
As the lyrics to The Police’s song exemplify, half of the citizenry of this country is being thrown headlong into an unsure abyss of an exercise in discombobulation.
My head spins, my heart breaks.
For what is about to take place to the women of this country is something no woman can be prepared for, as we find out what we thought were our protections for privacy and our own self determination has been revealed to be that of temporary liberation.
In the hate-filled hurricane of a rights’ reversal by the ideological right in this country, women of the United States of America are being targeted for relegation to the post of second-class citizen.
When Roe v. Wade is overturned by the United States Supreme Court, there is going to be a seismic shift of such enormity that will leave Americans forever changed in its’ wake. There will be no part of anyone’s lives in this country that are not going to be touched by the majority’s decision.
As the leak draft of the Supreme Court decision authored by Justice Samuel Alito was posted publicly on May 2nd, 2022 at Politico; a cascade of reactions came forth.
Those politicians and activists in opposition of abortion, who have been up in arms for decades, you would have thought were the ones that should be dancing in the street in having achieved what they’ve been working for during these past 49 years since the 1973 decision upholding reproductive, privacy rights for women across the nation in Roe v. Wade.
Activists and their political allies across the United States have this sense of quiet coming from their corners. It’s somewhat kind of odd in their reaction to getting the outcome that they’ve desired for these many decades, as the opponents of abortion seem not so sure of how to expound further on what comes next.
Alas, the public reaction from that ideological corner has seemed quite docile in heralding the possibility of the Supreme Court’s draft going their way. Conservatives from beltway to state houses are more in an uproar of rage aimed at whoever the person it was that would have the audacity to leak the draft in the first place.
And, there they are – the usual suspects of laying the outrage on thick and wide; McConnell, Graham and Cruz coming up the backside to the cameras.
The three gents from Kentucky, South Carolina, and Texas respectively are quick to the microphone[2] to blame the left. I’m a left-handed person, so I don’t take kindly when you besmirch the word ‘left’. But, that isn’t the left that they mean, as they start the innuendo to rile up their conservative base with terms of calling the person who leaked that draft the following: radical left, left wing. Well, damn, fellas, you all need to come up with some fresh material, ‘cus that insult is running on empty. Their pouting only proves an allegiance to catching the leaker and not to give two breaths about what a woman is going to have to go through when her rights are ripped away.
Even the Chief Supreme Court Justice is in a tizzy over finding the leaker of Alito’s draft. Ironically, many conservatives are just fine with the fact that if the Supreme Court remains on track to take away a constitutional right of a fellow citizen, you hear crickets from their peanut gallery.
“This was a singular and egregious breach of that trust that is an affront to the Court and the community of public servants who work here.” – Chief Justice John Roberts, United States Supreme Court[3]
The breach of confidence is not the leak of the draft written in striking down Roe v. Wade. The breach of confidence is in me as a citizen of THIS country in thinking that I am granted equal rights protections under the Constitution of the United States of America. And, the con comes to the surface in knowing that I am not and the topsy-turvy type of gas-lighting has even crept into the halls of the Supreme Court.
Chief Justice John Roberts may have that prestigious moniker before his given name; yet, he is no longer first among equals on the Supreme Court. Just another vote of nine people is what he has become, as the reality of him being the arbiter who holds balance upon that institution and being its’ ideological leader is kaput.
Bluntly put, Roberts is coming off like a casino greeter in Vegas who is a welcoming host with a scant less power than his ability to be a tour guide with a charming smile.
Roberts’ ideological brethren on that court no longer needs to heed or be attentive to him due to their ability to make the majority number of 5.
At this point in time, he can either vote with the majority or not on what their rulings will be. On their side or not, the vote of the quintet will come.
Either way it’s those five who will run the show from their hallowed seats within the Supreme Court.
By the way, from the outside to me, it looks like the FBI might be more effective in getting to the bottom of who leaked this draft, than the Marshall of the Court. Yet, the Chief Justice has decided to keep the investigation internal.
I’m curious if the Chief Justice will look into getting all of his colleagues and those they go home to at the end of the day to be hooked up to a polygraph machine to see if there is a probability that the leaker might be tilting from the right side of the scales of justice.
After all, there is a spouse among the nine members of that court who has quite a prolific way of making their political wants known in black and white or multitude of texts.
On the socially distanced, cocktail party circuit, the hunt for finding out the person who is the leaker has a way of becoming a new version of the parlor game, Clue. Is it The Best Friend? Is it the Author Himself? Is it an Angry Liberal? Is it a Constrictive Conservative? Is it a Wayward Clerk? Damn, if only things could be that light-hearted in frivolity at this point. But, it is so far from that.
That which is now did not come out of the blue. Yet, the faux distress comes from places most ironic.
“I do think what happened at the Court is tremendously bad. I wonder how long we’re going to have these institutions at the rate we’re undermining them. Then I wonder when they’re gone or destabilized what we will have as a country. I don’t think the prospects are good if we continue to lose them.” – Justice Clarence Thomas, United States Supreme Court[4]
Now, these lofty words come from the same Justice of the Supreme Court, whose best friend and wife, Ginni Thomas, has her pinky swirling around in the sewer of sedition and diddling her way in trying to get Arizona officials to disregard Biden’s win and replace[5] it with a new slate of electors for Trump.
Maybe, instead of clutching your pearls in disbelief Clarence, in tossing out an innuendo of being bullied[6]; you should think about how dissolving a precedent like Alka-Seltzer tablets in a sea of sorrow and making millions of women’s (and those who support them) lives become frazzled and fizzled would change the way this entire society shall move forward from such a regressive decision.
“You can’t have a civil society, a free society without a stable legal system.” – Justice Clarence Thomas, United States Supreme Court[4]
That is the power of a precedent, as even ordinary citizens of the United States can have some semblance of stability in knowing certain rights are fortified and retained for legalistic balance of how each and every one of us plans our lives.
Alas, at the almost 50 year mark, one of those precedents is done away with in a snap of a judicial finger.
In this situation of the forthcoming Dobbs decision, it is not us from outside that is undermining the institution for which Justice Clarence Thomas exists within; but, just the contrary.
I have dubbed those who have voted in the majority decision to crush Roe v. Wade in such a callous way, The Regressive Five.
You’ve already met Clarence “Mr. Stable Able” Thomas, and Samuel “The Rewinder” Alito. And, then there’s Brett “Wet My Whistle” Kavanaugh[7] and Amy “Handmaid[8]” Coney Barrett. Oh, and Gilead might be realer than real with that descriptive narrative.
“I can’t pre-commit or say yes I’m going in with some agenda, because, I’m not. I don’t have any agenda. I have no agenda to overrule[9] Casey. Um, I have an agenda to stick to the rule of law and decide cases as they come.” – Justice Amy Coney Barrett, United States Supreme Court
Justice Amy Coney Barrett speaks in such a lilting tone about adoption being an alternative[10] to abortion, as if the woman who is pregnant does not know that option is available to her already. And, as she says that, it just brushes the idea of a woman’s autonomy to the side. Her simplistic narrative of a woman having that choice of placing a birthed child up for adoption is twisting the notion of having a constitutional right to reproductive privacy in the first place.
Yet, then again if a woman is not whole, she is half on that scale of what being a citizen in the United States of America is. She is a human being not benefited of the depth and breadth of the protections of the Constitution of these Untied States.
But then again, who am I? I am just a woman.
Finally, there is one of the five that have said the following at their confirmation hearing[11], where an issue came up on the subject of the aforementioned nominee’s actions as a law professor:
“The question which is directed at young women, ‘cause sadly this is reality they sometimes face. The problem is this, suppose an older partner woman at the firm that you are interviewing at asks you: “If you intend to become pregnant soon. What are your choices as a young person?” You can say yes, tell the truth in the hypothetical. Say it’s true. And, not get the job. And, not be able to pay your debts. You can lie. Maybe get the job. And, you can say no. That’s a choice too. It’s a hard choice. Or, you could push back in some shape or form. And, we talk about the pros and the cons in a Socratic dialogue; so they can think through for themselves, how they might answer that very difficult question. Senator, I do ask for a show of hands; not for the question you asked, but for the following question. And, I ask it of everybody. How many of you had questions like this asked of you in the employment environment, an inappropriate question about your family planning? And, I am shocked every year, Senator, how many young women raise their hand.”
I could only wish the now Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch would reflect upon the words spoken with eloquence and an understanding tone from the then law Professor Neil Gorsuch; for he could see that it is a hard choice, which a woman has to make in a situation such as dealing with an unintended pregnancy,
But, a wish like that is a fool’s errand.
Errand is the cruelty and fools are the powerless citizens left in the dust of a decision. The people of these United States have respected the landmark cases which are precedent. Yet, that cannot be said for everyone.
“I would tell you that Roe v. Wade decided in 1973 is a precedent of the United States Supreme Court. It has been reaffirmed with reliance interest considerations are important there. And, all the other factors that go into analyzing precedent have to be considered. It is a precedent of the United States Supreme Court that was reaffirmed in Casey 1992 and in several other cases. So, a good judge would consider it as precedent of the United States Supreme Court worthy as treatment as precedent like any other.” – Justice Neil Gorsuch, United States Supreme Court[12]
The irony is not lost on me upon the brink of Roe’s reversal in knowing that the same scenarios which are discussed from a textbook in a Legal Ethics and Professionalism class at University of Colorado’s Law School on the questions proffered about employment and family planning that have been deemed inappropriate in the past will definitely be made appropriate in the future for any young woman with a dream of becoming a lawyer and having them deferred or detoured by an unintended pregnancy.
To me, it is not just the words which are used in that draft opinion, but the calculatedly callous level of societal backwardness that is the foundation which is used by Justice Alito.
In those 98 pages[13] of venom aimed at half the population in the United States of America, the associate Justice of the Supreme Court seems to relish treating the landmark ruling from almost 50 years ago with such disdain and outright hate aimed not only towards the then makeup of the court in 1973, but also the benefactors of the privacy rights that were upheld.
Justice Alito’s odd affinity for jurist Matthew Hale[14] of the 17th century truly is the ultimate insult and twisting of the literal knife into the backs of women who are at the core of this draft decision.
Rulings of the Supreme Court can come from anything one of the Justices and those who clerk for them can gravitate to in researching any reasoning of how things are formulated in the final version that is set upon the public. Of all the dusty tomes of legalistic theories of centuries past, I wonder why Alito landed upon the British jurist who propagated and defended marital rape, and was involved in one of England’s most notorious witchcraft trials; where two women were sentenced to death.
As those who try to downplay the meaning of Hale being a part of Alito’s authored draft, they just shrug it off or make a lackluster attempt to defend the man of the 17th century as being a man of his time. The time is never wrong when you can do the right thing. Be it back in the days of Hale or in the present day.
I guess it can all depend upon what any specific person thinks the right thing is. Those who have the power always find a way to cut a path of privilege to justify anything which floats their boat.
“In 1972, the comedian George Carlin began to perform a routine called “The Seven Words You Can’t Say On TV”. Today you can see shows on your TV screen in which the dialogue appears at time to consist almost entirely of those words. Carlin’s list seems like a quaint relic. But, it would be easy to put together a new list called – things you can’t say if you’re a student or professor at a college or university, or an employee of many big corporations. And, there wouldn’t be just seven items on that list. You can’t say that marriage is a union between one man and one woman. Until very recently that’s what the vast majority of Americans once thought. I wrote the following; I assume those who cling to old beliefs will be able to whisper their thoughts in the recesses of their homes. But, if they repeat those views in public; they will risk being labeled as bigots. And, be treated as such by governments, employers and schools. That is just what is coming to pass. One of the great challenges of the Supreme Court going forward will be to protect freedom of speech.” – Justice Samuel Alito, November 12th 2020[15]
There is such a level of patriarchal liberty that is taken by those on ascended levels of power; who think they say anything they want about those in society that have no power at all. It’s that squeamishness that rears its’ ugly head from mostly (and I have to pinpoint it out) white males that really jars the senses. Oh, freedom of speech, they howl. But, the reality is, what is it that they are speaking of? Is it sexism, racism, classism, and exactly what the history of these United States is that they don’t want to have to come to terms with? It comes down to just the tiniest pinch of courtesy is all the rest of us in this country are asking for.
I actually think a person whining about their freedom of speech being curbed is a red herring at times; for they just got to go right to that edge, rip the wounds open and have a tantrum when they can’t say just any old thing that flies out of their mouths. The thing is – some people just want to say their racist, sexist, homophobic and every other ‘phobic’ thing that pops into their heads and think they can do that without getting a clap-back and spotlight placed on them for what they have chosen to decide to blather about in a public sphere. We all have brains, we all have mouths; between opening one of the two, you should catch your tongue via an internal edit switch. Say what you want, but just know for every action, there’s a reaction.
I would humbly give a retort to Justice Alito’s keynote speech to the Federalist Society in 2020 to this present moment when people are using their constitutional rights to protest against his heartless drafting of the opinion of damning Roe v. Wade as being ‘egregiously wrong’.
So, if on a quiet cul-de-sac or at the end of a long driveway where homes have neatly manicured lawns and whitest fences, if any American decides to flex their constitutionally protected right of freedom of speech and assembly humming a hymn that would warm the cockles of good ‘ol Matthew Hale, then could that be cool with everyone? Of course it wouldn’t, for some laws are meant for some and not all. The quintet who laid down this damnable, ruling are not eager to hear a peep from the disgruntled masses. They only want a silent obedience from the women and those who support them.
I, as a person who views the Constitution of the United States of America as a living, breathing document, sees the strength and possibility of a more perfect union when there is an expansion of rights and not a constriction of laws to which we are protected under.
Salt in the wound revisited again, as this person is the one who stirred misery’s straw:
“And, by the way, nobody respects women more than Donald Trump. Nobody! And, nobody will be better to women” – Donald J. Trump[16]
Back when he said without care or pause in an interview when asked about what the fate of a woman getting an abortion should be, Donald J. Trump deposited that a woman ‘should face punishment’ for it. When asked what should happen to the man who gets her pregnant, he worms around with the following words, ‘different feelings, different people’. Get a view[17] on how the brush off is given from his own lips.
In the end, for lack of better words when he speaks about his level of respect[18] for women, the woman gets stoned and the man gets off. It’s that double-talk, double-speak, that in the end the woman will weep. Oh, so typical. Oh, so tragic.
And, to this person; you know, the one that is mocked as being the biggest loser, even though he denies that factor to this very day – in the end is the winner after all. Not of re-election. Yet, he is a victor on a generational scale. He has appointed three of the Supreme Court Justices, which are unified with two others to make the majority decision on overturning what was once considered a case that was precedent, Roe. v. Wade. So, Donald Trump, the one-term, coup caressing, both-sides equating, droolin’ while hatin’, and all around tactless flea, has manifested into the unlikeliest steward of perpetuating one of this nation’s most insidious legal rulings.
In a most grotesque irony, that vile remark from Access Hollywood of Donald J. Trump grabbing at something is in the end what the majority of the Supreme Court has now actually done to every woman.
I fear for my country.
Autonomy has been stripped bare, cast aside and callously vilified with a misogynistic thrust within the 98 page first draft of a decision crafted by Justice Samuel Alito.
Trump’s fecal-stained footprints upon the Constitution will be the eternal stain in infamy that is married to the stench[19] which Justice Sonia Sotomayor spoke of during the oral arguments of the Dobbs case, which the draft decision overturning Roe v. Wade will be decided.
Of course, the anti-abortion crowd didn’t just begin their crusade to turn back the clock in the last decade; but, in the Trumpian era when they have strangled liberty of half of the population, it seems they are jonesin’ on how cruel they can be.
As if they are whipping themselves up into an ecstatic dance of religious fervency, the more debased they can be towards those they target makes cruelty being to the point[20] of all which they do to become some sort of golden chip to hand Saint Peter at the gates of heaven.
Not only are we going to roll back your rights, take them away; we are going to disembowel you and drag your intestines on the floor back and forth over broken glass. There has to always be that extra smash to your psyche and pound of flesh.
There is such a level of vindictiveness to women who you do not even know. And, in the way we are to be treated, it proves you sure as anything, don’t want to know us. All you want to do is hammer our dreams, our souls, and smother our spirit.
I fear for my country.
No longer does the American public hear about tax cuts, lowering the budget deficit and the rock-ribbed allegiance to being hawks of defending our democracy in the sphere of national security. We are now hearing nary a peep on that front.
For what was once a political party of well-founded ideas of conservatism that could be debatable between themselves and those who opposed them, has devolved into a cast of televised tastemakers, twitter trolls, elected hooligans and cackling con-artists who stridently promote and profess the litany of the anti and pro – anti-privacy, anti-intellectual, anti-history, anti-democracy, to pro-misogyny, pro-authoritarian, pro-conspiracy, in an all out adherence to Steve Bannon’s coda of deconstructing[21] the administrative state.
From the state house to the Congress and even upon the bench of the Supreme Court, it seems that a certain dystopian strain is bent on tearing everything down around us all.
I have no doubt that Roe v. Wade may have been the largest target to eviscerate, but it is only the beginning of how far towards the past the members of the Republican Party are chomping at the bit to take us backwards.
A quartet of cases that clung to the precipice of remaining on the books had their decisions based on rights to privacy within amendments of the Constitution:
Griswald v. Connecticut (birth control)
Loving v. Virginia (interracial marriage)
Lawrence v. Texas (sodomy)
Obergefell v. Hodges (same-sex marriage)
It would be the most interesting of precedents to be incinerated by the Regressive Five, if Loving v. Virginia is gone with the wind. Oh, Miss Scarlet!
I fear for my country.
Equality, Interrupted!
For five people to be the final judicial arbiter over the lives of millions is what is what shakes me to the core most about what this ruling will portend.
When the ruling in Dobbs is made final as a decision, the trigger laws of constitutional amendments enacted across more than half the states in this nation will go into effect. But, before it does, the governors of Texas and Oklahoma are making sure they are at the forefront of restrictions in their states, even going so far as declaring abortion illegal at fertilization.
Why is it that the legislatures that are overwhelmingly led by male are the ones who are at the forefront of finding a way to restrict a woman’s right to choose? If all citizens in the United States of America are equal, why is it that women are always in the position of having to be ‘given’ a right, which men have always seen as a privilege of just birthright.
To see the news coverage of any of these men, it’s always that sickening similarity of a sadistic scowl and Joker-ish grin[22] upon their faces as they are crafting these bills into law and having a putrid performance of a public signing. And, like some minstrel, or should I say menstrual peppering to the spectacle are the women that are present with a calculated complicity in their smiles.
Women should not have to feel any compunction to explain or shrink themselves into specks of dust in order to gain validation from others who have not walked in their path. Either respect their path or just move out of the way. There is no need for her to explain her decision. Autonomy is hers and hers alone.
If people ceased a certain action, then there would be no debate on abortion. And, then that would be an epic battle of the sexes that one of the two parties involved would truly come up short on. Yeah, I just put that idea out there!
I could go down that line of thinking, but I should not even have to let pop into my head. Oops, I guess being out of sorts from the gut-punch in having my Constitutional right ripped away from me, is making this citizen just a bit antsy.
America, the land of the free! Yet, for all?
“The caged bird sings with a fearful trill of things unknown but longed for still and his tune is heard on the distant hill for the caged bird sings of freedom.” – Maya Angelou, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”[23]
Majority of those who protest in front of women’s clinics with rosary beads, prayers, forceful voice, and placards of varied pleas, have over the years been the usual face of the public opposition to abortion. Yet, there are actors who are birthed from the darker regions of their cause; who advocate for criminalization and far worse for those performing the procedure[24], based on an extreme biblical worldview. They are known as abortion abolitionists[25]. White men are the leaders of this movement, as they exist in a venomous marriage with their ideological kind in the patriot movement of militia and nationalists. One flashing red-warning sign of extremism came in the form of a manifesto[26] which was calling for a Holy War, which was written by an elected lawmaker who had also introduced an abolition bill in Washington state.
These are treacherous times in the lead up to and the aftermath which is coming when Roe v. Wade is gone and women who need abortions will find a way to take care of their reproductive needs. For what the majority in the Dobbs case is going to do, it will make the road less safe for half the population with what they’ve wrought.
“Well I wish I could be
Like a bird in the sky
How sweet it would be
If I found I could fly
Oh I’d soar to the sun
And look down at the sea” – Nina Simone, (“I Wish I Knew How It Was to Be Free”)[27]
Americans can no longer be lulled into a false sense of security in thinking that laws that are on the books from decades ago can never be weakened or vanished in a single decision. Once a right is taken away, it isn’t coming back. If anyone thinks that those opposed to progress and equality won’t stop their march to take the calendars in reverse course in any area they deem fit, then you might just wake up one day and find the calendar has become a blank slate.
Generations it will take to see a future of freedom’s promise. I fear for my country, for apathy has become a shrug of comfort. Yet, maybe losing something so precious might kick our revival for justice into gear.
This is a hope I place forward with a broken heart, to recapture a lost engagement of all American citizenry.
“The Alito Draft: An Exercise In Discombobulation”
By
A.H. Scott
::::::::::::::::::::::
The Alito Draft: An Exercise In Discombobulation – THE FOOTNOTES
1-Canary In A Coal Mine – Genius Lyrics
https://genius.com/The-police-canary-in-a-coalmine-lyrics
2-Republicans Outrage Over Roe V Wade SCOTUS Leak Is A Cynical Ploy
https://www.thedailybeast.com/republicans-outrage-over-the-roe-v-wade-scotus-leak-is-a-cynical-ploy-to-excuse-jan-6-capitol-riot
3-Supreme Court Press Release – Supreme Court
https://www.supremecourt.gov/publicinfo/press/pressreleases/pr_05-03-22
4- Justice Clarence Thomas: “I do think what happened at the Court is tremendously bad.” – C-SPAN
5-Ginni Thomas Urged Arizona Lawmakers To Reverse Trump Election Loss – AXIOS
https://www.axios.com/2022/05/20/ginni-thomas-arizona-election-trump
6-After the leaked Roe Opinion, Justice Thomas Says the Supreme Court Can’t Be Bullied – NPR
https://www.npr.org/2022/05/07/1097382507/supreme-court-abortion-clarence-thomas-bullied-roe-v-wade
7- Here’s Brett Kavanaugh Mentioning Beer During His Senate Hearing – YouTube
8-What To Know About People Of Praise, Amy Coney Barrett’s Religious Community – Elle Magazine
https://www.elle.com/culture/career-politics/a34316485/people-of-praise-amy-coney-barrett/
9- Listen to how Amy Coney Barrett sidesteps questions on abortion ruling – Los Angeles Times
10- Adoption Isn’t the Solution to Abortion, No Matter What Amy Coney Barrett Says – Vogue
https://www.vogue.com/article/adoption-amy-coney-barrett
11- Gorsuch Defends His Use of Pregnancy Case in Law Class – PBS Newshour
12- Senators Question Gorsuch on Roe v. Wade – Wall Street Journal
13- Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization – DocumentCloud
https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/21835435/scotus-initial-draft.pdf
14-Samuel Alito’s Anti-Abortion Inspiration – Vanity Fair
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/05/samuel-alito-roe-v-wade-abortion-draft
15-Justice Alito Discusses: Abortion, Speech, Assembly, Religion, Guns, Supreme Court – Federalist Society
16-Trump in Green Bay: Women should face punishment for Illegal Abortions – TMJ4-TV – Appleton, Wisconsin
17- Donald Trump’s Hazy Stance On Abortion ‘Punishment’ – MSNBC
18- Nobody Has More Respect For Women Than Donald Trump – ACLU
https://www.aclum.org/en/news/nobody-has-more-respect-women-donald-trump-we-disagree
19- Justice Sotomayor Grills Attorney Over ‘Stench’ of Overturning Abortion Rights – C-SPAN
20- The Cruelty Is the Point – The Atlantic
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/the-cruelty-is-the-point/572104/
21-How Trump Is Dismantling A Pillar of the American State – The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/07/donald-trump-dismantling-american-administrative-state
22- Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt Signs Texas-style Ban on Most Abortions – PBS Newshour
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/oklahoma-gov-kevin-stitt-signs-texas-style-ban-on-most-abortions
23- I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings – Sergio Caredda
24-The Signers – Southern Poverty Law Center
https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2015/signers
25- The Anti-Abortion Abolitionist Movement Is Dangerous – The Prism Reports
The anti-abortion abolitionist movement is dangerous. Here’s what you need to know
26- Washington State Lawmaker’s ‘Holy Army’ Manifesto Prompts FBI Scrutiny –The Daily Beast
https://www.thedailybeast.com/washington-state-lawmakers-holy-army-manifesto-prompts-fbi-scrutiny
27- I Wish I Knew How It Was To Be Free – Lyrics.com
https://www.lyrics.com/lyric/8607871/Nina+Simone/I+Wish+I+Knew+How+It+Would+Feel+to+Be+Free
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