Illiberalism
Gilead
Abortion, reproductive freedom, reproductive health, and even divorce
Fig. 1. Sign at demonstration in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, May 3, 2022. Janni Rye, via Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.
I wonder if some justices are worried about further inflaming pro-choice sentiment ahead of the November election. To be fair, prohibitions on abortions even when a woman’s life or health are endangered are the extremist of extremes. Logically, if you essentialize women as their childbearing capacities,[1] which seems to be the red hot thing[2] to do these days, then you should want to preserve and prolong those capacities, which pretty much means you gotta preserve and prolong the women in question. But these people are just stupid; judges, generally being lawyers, pretty much all have advanced degrees, and you gotta be able to recognize stupidity at least some of the time if you’re gonna get an advanced degree.[3]
Eric Berger, “Conservative US lawmakers are pushing for an end to no-fault divorce,” Guardian, June 25, 2024, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jun/25/republicans-no-fault-divorce
John Fritze, “Bloomberg: Supreme Court appears to side with Biden admin in abortion case, according to draft briefly posted on website,” Cable News Network, June 26, 2024, https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/26/politics/supreme-court-abortion-idaho-bloomberg