Excellent article from one of the best satire and honest
writers of this century: Heather Digby Parton (known as “Digby”) as reflected in her excellent
piece below from SALON.com with this headline:
“Samuel
Alito's use of ancient misogyny: SCOTUS rewinds to centuries-old common law for
abortion ban”
Alito's leaked draft decision goes back almost
a thousand years to illustrate abortion bans in living color
There is much to be shocked by in Justice Samuel Alito's
screed of a draft decision overturning Roe v. Wade, but his evocation
of centuries-old common law shouldn't be one of them. As it turns out, this is
not unusual, particularly among jurists who argue that certain ideas are so
firmly entrenched in the culture that there no longer remains any question on
their validity. That is not to say, however, that Alito's use of ancient
misogyny to undergird his arguments isn't disgraceful. In fact, it's nothing
short of grotesque.
He goes all the way back to the 13th century to cite Judge
Henry de Bracton's “De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliae,” a text
about “English law and customs” that explained that if a person has “struck a pregnant
woman, or has given her poison, whereby he has caused an abortion, if the
foetus be already formed and animated … he commits homicide” to argue that
abortion has been considered murder for centuries.
As the Washington Post's Dana Milbank points out, Alito failed to mention some of Bracton's other words of wisdom about fraudulent pregnancies and proper torture techniques.
Neither did Alito reference the fact that Bracton believed “women differ from men in many respects, for their position is inferior to that of men.”
As Milbank writes, Bracton did think women have certain rights and wrote: “When a virgin is defiled, let her defiler be punished in the parts in which he offended. Let him thus lose his eyes which gave him sight of the maiden's beauty for which he coveted her. And let him lose as well the testicles which excited his hot lust. The truth of the victim's accusation would be ascertained by an examination of her body, made by four law-abiding women sworn to tell the truth as to whether she is a virgin or defiled.”
The truth is that Hale and
the centuries of legal thinkers after him didn't believe that women had any
autonomy in the first place.
Perhaps the rapidly accelerating right-wing movement to deny abortion even in cases of rape and incest across the country can adopt this process as a compromise? It wouldn't be that far out, after all.
A few years back when SD passed an abortion ban, state Rep. Bill Napoli was quoted saying that he might accept a rape exception under similar circumstances this way: “A real-life description to me would be a rape victim, brutally raped, savaged. The girl was a virgin. She was religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated. I mean, that girl could be so messed up, physically and psychologically, that carrying that child could very well threaten her life.”
Never let it be said that conservatives have no compassion
for rape victims — as long as they are virgins who have been horrifically
brutalized “as bad as you can possibly make it.” Rep. Napoli would fit right in
the year 1250.
More from this fine article here.
My 2 Cents: As I said, a great
piece by Digby and nothing I can add except kudos and congrats for writing it.
She did a super job.
The research on Justice Alito’s
thinking which I have to say is goofy at best and awful at worse is wide spread
in GOP/Conservative la-la land today more so than ever and especially in this
6-3 USSC.
That is not good for any
us and especially for those of us who aren’t aligned with Alito’s point of view
on religion and more so about women – all shameful and unbecoming for any
sitting Justice.
Digby’s blog
page (Hullabaloo) is here – keeper bookmark for sure.
Also, more articles from
Digby here.
Thanks for stopping by.
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