{"id":3952,"date":"2022-05-10T11:38:29","date_gmt":"2022-05-10T15:38:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/consistent-life.org\/blog\/?p=3952"},"modified":"2024-03-26T10:36:24","modified_gmt":"2024-03-26T14:36:24","slug":"reflections-alito-draft-leak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/consistent-life.org\/blog\/index.php\/2022\/05\/10\/reflections-alito-draft-leak\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflections on the Alito Draft Leak of May 2, 2022"},"content":{"rendered":"

The May 2 article in Politico<\/em><\/a> has caused quite a stir: a leaked February 10 draft of a proposed opinion<\/a> in Dobbs v. Jackson.<\/em> The draft says that \u201cRoe<\/em>\u00a0was egregiously wrong from the start,\u201d and explicitly overturns Roe v. Wade<\/em> and Casey<\/em>. Here we offer a variety of responses.<\/p>\n

The Work Ahead<\/h3>\n

Excerpt from Statement of Democrats for Life of America,<\/a> a CLN member group<\/p>\n

Kristen Day, Executive Director<\/p>\n

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\"Kristen<\/a>The Court clearly made a mistake 50 years ago when it took away these decisions from the people, and now we as a nation are so polarized that we forget that there are real people involved. This should not be about the next election. This should be about women, their families, and their children.<\/p>\n

Many states have chosen to eliminate health and safety regulations governing abortion in response to the possibility that the Supreme Court might overturn Roe. They have voted to allow non-doctors to perform abortions on women. They have lowered their regulatory oversight of chemical abortions. Mail-order abortion pills have inflicted significant trauma on many women who used them and even sent them to emergency rooms.<\/p>\n

On the other side of the spectrum, we have states limiting abortion from 6 weeks to 20 weeks. Still, some of those states lack the infrastructure to connect pregnant women with available resources to help them stay in school, continue their careers or have essential resources to support their growing families. More needs to be done in this regard.<\/p>\n

\"Alito<\/a><\/p>\n

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Excerpt from Statement of Feminists for Life of America<\/a>, a CLN member group<\/p>\n

Serrin Foster, President<\/p>\n

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\"Serrin<\/a>Our goal . . . is to make abortion unthinkable.<\/u><\/em>\u00a0And for us, it means helping women achieve what they really deserve: practical resources and support\u00a0to support nonviolent choices.<\/p>\n

Angry voices are masking so much pain.\u00a0Efforts by big corporations to pay employees to travel to\u00a0\u201cabortion destination states\u201d will only create a new generation of women who mourn or mask their pain.<\/p>\n

And using poor women and women of color to defend abortion is unacceptable.\u00a0Nothing<\/u><\/em>\u00a0is more racist than abortion. Their children are just as precious as any other.<\/p>\n

Economic justice does not come from women laying their bodies down for brutal procedures or taking a series of poisonous pills to accommodate unsupportive administrators, bosses, or partners.<\/p>\n

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On the Streets<\/h3>\n

Excerpt from Response from Rehumanize International,<\/a> a CLN member group<\/p>\n

Herb Geraghty, Executive Director<\/p>\n

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Since the news broke, our team has been a presence outside the court nearly nonstop \u2014 staying out until past 2 AM and heading back at 8 AM the next morning.\u00a0As a result,\u00a0our secular, nonpartisan, and consistently pro-life message has been shared by media<\/a>\u00a0to millions of viewers. In this moment it is more critical than ever that our paradigm-shifting ideas are heard far and wide . . .<\/p>\n

At many points, our small group were the only pro-life voices present outside the court \u2014 that means if we weren’t there, the media would only be able to report on the desperate talking points of the profit-hungry abortion industrial complex. The Supreme Court’s decision is not yet final \u2014 and the pro-abortion movement is working very hard to manufacture enough public pressure on key justices to intimidate them into changing their minds.<\/p>\n

\"Dobbs<\/a><\/p>\n

We must not allow the abortion industrial complex to take control of the narrative. We must use this time to lend our voices to the cause of justice for the unborn.<\/p>\n

This witness has not been easy. We have faced more violence from pro-abortion protesters outside the court than ever before. I have been intentionally elbowed, pushed, shoved, hit on the head with signs, and had water thrown at me. I have had multiple signs ripped out of my hands and ripped up in front of my face or thrown far away into a crowd. I have seen my fellow activists punched, slammed in the head with megaphones, pulled to the ground, and even groped. Of course, as always, we have responded with nothing but nonviolence and de-escalation tactics.<\/p>\n

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Protection<\/h3>\n

Blog post \u2013 After Roe: A World beyond Abortion?<\/a><\/p>\n

Aimee Murphy, Rehumanize International founder<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Aimee<\/a>We must create a new, human-centered paradigm for criminal justice after the offense of abortion, and of a life-affirming reproductive justice to prevent abortion.<\/p>\n

I encourage my pro-life friends and colleagues to share a bold proposal<\/a> for holistic, human-centered restorative justice after abortion with their communities, legislators, and leaders. Punitive, dehumanizing, and vengeful justice within our current retributive model is incongruous with human dignity. As pro-lifers we should understand that our retributive justice system \u2014 which only compounds and multiplies trauma and harm \u2014 can never be a human-centered, healing response to the communal pain and trauma of abortion. Instead, we need to see holistic, comprehensive community-based care for pregnant people, their prenatal children, and their families. Let’s build a world beyond abortion: protect the preborn in the law, and ensure families have the food, housing, childcare, healthcare, living wage, and paid leave to choose life and parent confidently.<\/p>\n

I support restorative justice after abortion. I want to see healing for all who have suffered at the hands of the abortion industrial complex and their dehumanizing lies. I want to see healing for those who have chosen abortion and suffered the loss of their own child, or for those who mourn lost siblings, cousins, or other family members. I want to see healing for the clinic workers, the abortionists, and the corporations who participated in abortions, who should be given the space to come to terms with their complicity and openly grieve the children killed and missing today due to the violence of abortion. I want to see a justice system that acknowledges the loss of countless preborn children, helps offenders make restitution for the harm done, and more than anything that works together with families and communities to heal and make abortion unthinkable by providing the resources that will end the \u201cdemand\u201d for this violent procedure.<\/p>\n

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How to Regulate Abortion<\/a><\/p>\n

Kevin D. Williamson<\/p>\n

National Review<\/em>, May 5, 2022<\/p>\n

Kevin is not a consistent-lifer, but makes good points here. <\/em>National Review accounts itself conservative in the William F. Buckley tradition<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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The desire to punish is distinct from the desire to protect \u2014 it is rooted in an entirely different psychology and it produces very different policy prescriptions. If, as seems likely, Roe v. Wade<\/em> is vacated and the matter of abortion regulation is properly returned to the state legislatures, we should be mindful of that difference and emphasize protection over punishment when crafting our statutes . . .<\/p>\n

As I often observe, we Americans are not the Swiss \u2014 or even the Germans or the Dutch. We are not an especially ruly or easily governed people, as witnessed by our unusually high homicide rates . . . So it is unlikely that we will achieve 100 percent compliance with any abortion prohibitions we enact.<\/p>\n

. . . even if we assume that every single one of the abortions that happen in the United States in a typical year (estimates vary, but probably around 850,000) would otherwise result in a pregnancy subsidized by Medicaid or another government program, this would not add up to a great deal of money \u2014 probably less than half a day\u2019s worth of Social Security spending. If additional support for vulnerable mothers is required, then that is a bearable cost. As with practically every other welfare initiative, our problem there is going to be program design and administration, not resources.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Where There\u2019s Value to the Leak<\/h3>\n

Excerpt from There\u2019s an upside to the Alito draft leak<\/a><\/p>\n

Mercatornet, May 6, 2022<\/p>\n

Richard Stith, CLN Board member<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>The leak of Justice Alito\u2019s draft of the majority decision in\u00a0Dobbs v. Jackson Women\u2019s Health Organization<\/em>, unfortunate as it may be, should not delegitimate the US Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

If a snarky, plotting, election-related draft had been revealed, that would have truly delegitimated the court. But in the draft one only finds very solid scholarship . . .<\/p>\n

Why should close reading, historical insight and an abundance of footnotes delegitimate the Court?<\/p>\n

As a pro-life writer, I actually was a bit disappointed in the draft\u2019s content. It contains no mention of the horror of abortion . . . it doesn\u2019t mention any of the arguments that abortion hurts women . . .<\/p>\n

[T]he leak has a silver lining. People will read through the draft opinion with greater care than they would ordinarily lavish on an actual Supreme Court opinion, where only the final result matters . . . And people find it plain exciting to read stuff that\u2019s supposed to be secret.<\/p>\n

Here is some evidence for my silver lining. The\u00a0Washington Post<\/a>\u00a0yesterday published an annotated albeit somewhat simplified version of the text. I thought that both the abridgment and the textual comments were remarkably fair-minded, really devoted only to explicating Alito\u2019s reasoning, not to unfairly debunking it.<\/p>\n

Others are no doubt doing what the\u00a0Washington Post<\/em>\u00a0did. This will soften support for\u00a0Roe<\/em>. If more and more people learn what an unfounded opinion it was, they will have less reverence for it . . .<\/p>\n

But maybe advance titillation is slightly better than a done-and-dusted announcement in June.<\/p>\n

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And More<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

If Roe Is Overturned, Where Should the Pro-Life Movement Go Next?<\/a> \u2013 in this New York Times article<\/em>, Tish Harrison Warren does another excellent roundup of several viewpoints.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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The Price of Roe<\/a> \u2013 our website showing how Roe has sabotaged peace and justice and equality goals.<\/p>\n

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Our blog posts:<\/em><\/p>\n

What Studies Show: Impact of Abortion Regulations<\/a><\/p>\n

Should Abortions be Illegal?<\/a><\/p>\n

Who the Law Targets<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Daily Show\u201d Doesn\u2019t Do Its Homework<\/a><\/p>\n

Abortion Facilitates Sex Abuse: Documentation<\/a><\/p>\n

How Abortion is Useful for Rape Culture<\/a><\/p>\n

Why the Hyde Amendment Helps Low-Income Women<\/a><\/p>\n

The Poor Cry Out for Justice, and We Respond with Legalized Abortion<\/a><\/p>\n

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The May 2 article in Politico has caused quite a stir: a leaked February 10 draft of a proposed opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson. The draft says that \u201cRoe\u00a0was egregiously wrong from the start,\u201d and explicitly overturns Roe v. Wade and Casey. Here we offer a variety of responses. The Work Ahead Excerpt from Statement… <\/p>\n