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A condescending, gloating taunt

Contemptuous. Condescending. Brash. Mocking. In-your-face. Imperious. Insolent. Spiteful. Rude.

That’s just a start on adjectives for Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito’s language and approach in the draft opinion that, it appears, soon will scrap a woman’s right to an abortion – a right the court recognized in Roe v. Wade in 1973.

Roe was egregiously wrong from the start.”

“Its reasoning was exceptionally weak.”

Roe was on a collision course with the Constitution from the day it was decided.”

“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.”

That’s Alito, in the draft opinion. And his language is not typical of court opinions.

It also, clearly, is not intended to persuade.

Judicial only because a justice wrote it. But not judicious.

“Idiots wrote Roe” is a fair paraphrase. “And idiots support it.”

It’s a gloating taunt, a stiff middle finger masquerading as a court ruling, from a judge playing a brawling gangster.

A win for his culture-war militiamen, rudely delivered. But not an end.


More on the leaked abortion opinion

Let’s go old all the way

I was a wanted child

300 versus 30,000,000,000,000


Because . . . what else?

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2 Comments

  1. Darlene Olivo Darlene Olivo

    Jeff, thank you for taking this on. I’m sickened beyond belief, and exhausted from it all. Dante is spinning in his grave wondering how he can conjure up another circle of hell appropriate enough to deal with these hypocritical assholes.

    • You’re welcome, Darlene. Thanks for reading my little essay.

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