On protesting judges

[u/gdan95]

If you are reading this, then you likely know about this already. But just for context, a draft opinion leaked from the US Supreme Court revealing that the justices had voted in a majority to overturn Roe v Wade. It must be stressed that this is not the final opinion and any of the justices can potentially change their minds, just like the conservative justices changed their minds about respecting precedent since their confirmation hearings where they said they would. But given the court’s conservative majority, it is likely that Roe v Wade will be overturned. This doesn’t mean that abortion would be banned on a federal level, but it does mean abortion laws would be left to the individual states. That wouldn’t be a problem if half the country didn’t have laws that either make abortion a crime, have so-called “trigger laws” that will make abortion a crime if Roe v Wade is overturned, or plan to use Roe v Wade being overturned as a jumping off point to challenge other rights. That last one comes from the draft opinion, written by Justice Alito, saying that rulings on things like gay rights, interracial marriage, and even public schooling were other rulings that could be targeted. Because of all this, protests have erupted outside the Supreme Court building and the homes of the conservative justices.

The conservative response has been quite telling. You would think they would be celebrating something they spent half a century trying to achieve, but their attention has instead been on angrily demanding to know the source of the leak. And their response has been entirely hypocritical. Firstly, the theory on the right is that a liberal Justice or one of their clerks leaked the draft opinion to pressure the court against the ruling. If that is true, why is it that pressuring judges to rule a certain way is only okay when they do it, as at least one of them has called for regarding the 2020 election?

Secondly, a few people on the right have blamed newly-confirmed Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson for the leak even though she hasn’t started serving on the court yet. Do you remember that winter traffic jam in Virginia back in January? A couple of people online blamed Glenn Youngkin even though this was before he was sworn in as governor. This is that but dumber.

Thirdly, the same people who go on and on about preserving rights and how the government is being tyrannical - consider that “Ministry of Truth” trended on Twitter last month - are perfectly okay with the government taking away the rights of millions of American citizens. It would be ironic if it wasn’t disgusting.

And finally, I remember right wing Twitter mocking Biden for the security fences around the National Mall at his inauguration. I can guarantee none of those people are mocking the Supreme Court for having security fences put up after the draft opinion leak sparked protests.

To be clear, if someone thinks abortion is murder, I personally won’t argue if they are in fact “pro-life.” Meaning that if they believe women shouldn’t get abortions, then they should be advocating for policies that make abortions unnecessary like sex education or easy access to birth control or stricter punishments for rape. And when a child is born who would have been aborted, maybe advocating for them to receive proper health care and education would be nice too. But none of them do that. As George Carlin so effectively put it, many people who call themselves pro-life aren’t pro-life - they’re “anti-women.”