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Alito's leaked draft banning abortion is breathtakingly misogynistic
Alito sneers at rights after "the latter part of the 20th century" — inviting the reversal of 70 years of progress
www.salon.com
5.3.22
Late Monday night, Politico leaked a draft of the Supreme Court opinion, written by Alito, that would, without reservation, overturn Roe and allow states to ban abortion outright. Though heavy with legal-ese, Alito's misogyny shines through like a deplorable beacon. His contempt for the very idea that women are rights-bearing people is not hard to discern, even as he claims to hold no ill will towards them. Sewn throughout this decision is a deep, abiding belief that women simply aren't people in any meaningful sense. Alongside his contempt for women as rights-bearing people, this draft opinion is rife with loathing of any social progress made after the 19th century. Alito repeatedly notes that no right to abortion was legally established before "the latter part of the 20th century," as if the relative newness of the legal right inherently makes it illegitimate. "Until the latter part of the 20th century, there was no support in American law for a constitutional right to obtain an abortion. Zero. None," he writes, the whiny tone unmistakable. Of course, there are a plethora of rights that were not established until the latter part of the 20th century.....
Women did not have the right to use birth control, have their own credit cards or bank accounts, be paid fairly for their work, or decline sex with a husband until the latter part of the 20th century, either. Jim Crow laws and segregated schools were still legal until the latter part of the 20th century. And, crucially, the rights to have sex in the privacy of your own home — even with someone of the same sex — and to have a same-sex marriage were established even later, in the 21st century. Alito "makes it extremely clear that he is *not* including" decisions that legalized same-sex sexual relations or marriage." Republicans have elsewhere indicated that, however. After they end Roe, they're coming for Obergefell v. Hodges, the decision that legalized same-sex marriage. After all, the conservatives on the court — including Alito — voted against Obergefell the first time. Now they have another crack at it, with a majority that opposes the right. Republican politicians have admitted that they want to overturn Griswold v. Connecticut, allowing birth control to be banned again. But of course, when progressives argue that Republicans want to undo the past 70 years of progress, they get accused of hyperbole. Republicans are coming for the whole panoply of women's rights, LGBTQ rights, and racial equality.
This is the opening salvo in the Grand Old Taliban Party's crusade to return America to 1960, where both women and blacks knew their place .... subserviant to white males.