If Women Were Human, They Could Have Rights Too

As much as the conservative members of the Court Formerly Known as Supreme like to say, their love of originalism is just a cover story for their religious upbringing, which has long held that women must submit to their husbands, not commit adultery and not enjoy sex except with their husbands.

None of those restrictions apply to the men, of course. Superficially, men are told they’re not to commit adultery or premarital sex but when they do, there’s a nudge and a wink and the standard ‘ah well, men will be men.’ Based on the news reports, I think adultery may actually be a prerequisite to become an evangelical Christian minister.

Alito’s leaked letter has him quoting the words of a British guy from 475 years ago who endorsed marital rape - without any legal precedent - and killed ‘witches’ and whose views of women were broadly misogynistic. And of course, there’s lots of historical and legal precedent to deny women rights to own property, vote and gain custody of children that he could have relied on closer to home. Or for a current source, he could cite Sharia law judges in Saudi Arabia or Taliban politicians in Afghanistan.

And if he’s committed to originalism, why did he completely ignore some of the actual US founders’ efforts, like Ben Franklin’s inclusion of successful abortion inducement methods in a math book?

Let’s end this performance art about originalism. Nobody sane is buying it. Civilizations evolve, scientific knowledge increases and we’re all supposed to be stuck on the wishes of 350 year old founders as if they were all-knowing gods? They weren’t even up to disciple level, since most were slaveholders in a time when poverty was criminalized by the elitist circles our founders ran in. Even our founders acknowledged their government system was bound to have imperfections requiring amendments to fix.

In the wake of the leak of Alito’s draft - which I suspect was leaked by Ginni Thomas, the wife of Justice Thomas - protests erupted all over including some near the SCOTUS building and the homes of some justices. Added police protection was provided to some of the jurists and Justice Thomas announced that the SCOTUS would not be bullied.

By ‘bullied’ he meant they wouldn’t change their minds because peaceful protestors were legally protesting, just as our founders provided them the rights to do. When did conservatives get so thin-skinned and fearful about hearing words? It’s become common and repetitive to hear a lot of whining when anyone speaks in opposition to a conservative’s ideas. Their weak quivering knees and fragile backbones have proved nothing about an existence of any kind of real threat from moderates and liberals.

The absolute threat here is to women, who make up the majority of the country. Thankfully, the availability of contraception and the morning after pill will mitigate some of the damage. But some women will definitely die as a result of this pending ruling. Capital punishment for the crime of having sex seems cruel and unusual, but apparently the majority on the court have forgotten there’s a precedent about that.

As for the threat of real bullies, the January 6th insurrectionists certainly fit the bill, utilizing violence because of their support of another real bully. Ginni Thomas wore pompoms in support and raised hard cash for that bully who wants to jail all his political opponents, media critics and shoot BLM protesters who were legally protesting in DC. (Note: there was a molotov cocktail thrown into a place housing an anti-abortion group in Madison, Wisconsin today. We should be loud and vocal in opposition to that, too.)

The other legal beagle argument used by women’s rights deniers is that states - not the feds - should make the decisions. That line’s 50 years old. But it’s obvious to me that when half the states say No to abortion and half say ‘Women will have full rights here’, the anti-womanist politicians will double down, seeking federal laws to nationalize their bigotry. Bigots always go full authoritarian. History in every country makes that certain.

The only way to prevent the further advance of the creeping authoritarianism that will turn its sights on LGBT folks and people of color next is pretty simple. Democrats and Independents have to win greater control of the Senate and/or replace Manchin and Sinema, then eliminate the filibuster. That’s the only way they can stop attacks on human rights and voting rights that threaten our government’s legitimacy.

Stacey Abrams demonstrated in Georgia that good voter registration drives and get out the vote drives can upset the status quo when it comes to winning elections. We need to pound the pavement utilizing similar strategies and recruit savvier candidates. This year and in 2024.

Or we can sit and whine about how wrong things are and sound just like Republican officeholders.

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I’ll let the Liberal Redneck finish this (note that his language is not safe for work (NSFW).