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What I Hadn’t Heard About Alito

Lauren

Need a quick break from fuming over The Roe Bandito?

It wasn

Pro-life indeed. We need answers!

Curtsy to Annie for catching this gem.

UPDATE: Someone at Balloon Juice doesn’t get the joke. It’s a shoddy cut-and-paste job from a campus newspaper. And rather amusing.

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59 thoughts on What I Hadn’t Heard About Alito

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  4. This is obviously a vile conspiracy to smear possibly the greatest judge in the history of judgery, perpetrated by the foul consortium of the Associated Press, the ACLU, Jimmy Carter, and, of course, the immortal, re-animated brain of V.I. Lenin.

    You should be ashamed for becoming a party to such villany.

  6. I watched Chuck Schumer, of all people, giving Alito hell during his confirmation. Apparently he was unhappy about Alito’s take on whether the Constitution supports a woman’s right to have an abortion. Maybe if it was someone other than Schumer, I wouldn’t be laughing so hard.

    Black kettle, black pot, if you know what I mean…

  7. Call me simple but I’m struggling with a few things:

    First, I’ve read the Constitution and I can’t for the life of me find where it says a mother has the right to terminate the life of her unborn child, don’t think Madison covered that one

    Second, being an English teacher I’m aware of synonyms, and I understand examples such as:

    privacy=its none of your business

    but this one I don’t:

    privacy=killing my unborn child

    Face it, the Constitution offers no provision for abortion. And stop acting like Alito holds some out of the mainstream opinion on the matter. The Roe v. Wade decision was a highly controversial decision both culturally and legally. Interestingly enough, plenty of pro-choice legal scholars have noted that the ruling is legally problematic.

    The country is split over the issue and Alito happens to be on the side you disagree with.

  8. Chris: What part of the 9th amendment is a problem for you? ‘Just because we went to the trouble of spelling out these things the Government can’t keep you from doing, doesn’t mean that there aren’t a lot of other things that the Government also can’t keep you from doing. In fact, the Government can’t keep you from doing anything you damn well please unless we said it could here in this document.’

    If you are familiar with the history of the Bill of Rights, you’d, of course, be aware that the major objection to it was that some feared that explicitly stating some rights that the people retained would make it seem that other rights were implicitly denied based on their exclusion from the BoR.

    Of course, because you’re educated, you’re familiar with all of this. You’d just rather ignore it because it’s inconvient to realize that the Constitutional case on abortion is open-and-shut.

    Secondarily: if privacy!=none of your damn business, where do you derive the right to have a thing to say to a pregnant woman on the subject? We have a country of freedom, not of government making decisions about what people may and may not do.

  9. Face it, the Constitution offers no provision for abortion. And stop acting like Alito holds some out of the mainstream opinion on the matter. The Roe v. Wade decision was a highly controversial decision both culturally and legally. Interestingly enough, plenty of pro-choice legal scholars have noted that the ruling is legally problematic.

    The country is split over the issue and Alito happens to be on the side you disagree with.

    BUT HE TRY TO SHOT TEH POPE!!!!!!1

  14. Bonus English major joke:

    I’ve loved that word ever since Asimov did his jokebook, and included a bit on group words for prostitutes. (Group words as in “a pride of lions”, “a murder of crows”, etc.)

    Some of them were classic – the ones I remember:

    an anthology of pros
    a flourish of strumpets

    and of course,

    an essay of trollope’s

  15. NBarnes: “We have a country of freedom, not of government making decisions about what people may and may not do.”

    So the government has no right to tell me I can’t kill someone? Your statement is absurd, ofcourse the government can tell me what I can and cannot do, they are called laws. Freedom comes by restricting what laws the government can make.

    And to suggest that abortion is Constitutionally open and shut is naive at best, intellectually dishonest at worst.

    Law schools teach it as controversial

    The Supreme Court is divided over the issue.

    The issue is hotly contested. We obviously disagree, and again, that is fine, but don’t pretend its open and shut.

  16. So I click on Chris’ name to see wtf was up, and this is the first thing I see:

    I am starting to believe that feminists are completely devoid of humor….

    You just can’t make this shit up.

  17. I don’t understand what part of the 4th Amendment Chris is having a problem with. Security of the person.

    Just as you have the right to expel people from your home that you don’t want there (security of property), even if they might suffer as a result; you have a right to expel a fetus from your body that you don’t want there, even if the fetus is harmed as a result.

    Security of the person. The government cannot dictate to any person who they must allow to live inside their own body, and that constitutional protection can’t be infringed simply to protect humans that have no legal personhood anyway.

  18. Did you read what I wrote? My comments were not pertaining to the “joke” about Alito, it was about the “legitimate” criticizms that have been levied against him.

    Ha, Ha, I get it, he shot the pope. Does this mean he’s not for gun control?

  19. This was in the Ecking-fucksponent? Oh. My. God.

    With our world-renowned English writin’ lab, this is the shit that comes out of the “newspaper” office right down Grant Street.

    Oof.

  20. The government cannot dictate to any person who they must allow to live inside their own body, and that constitutional protection can’t be infringed simply to protect humans that have no legal personhood anyway.

    This is why the pro-life movement is attacking this all wrong. What we should be doing is pushing for a federal law granting Constitutional citizenship to the unborn from the moment of conception.

    At that point the 14th kicks in and abortion is illegal. If Roe is overturned, the abortion issue goes back to the states. If the unborn are citizens, it becomes a federal civil rights issue and illegal in all 50.

    (Oh, and with Alito on the bench, I’d imagine it would pass Constitutional muster. ;))

  21. What we should be doing is pushing for a federal law granting Constitutional citizenship to the unborn from the moment of conception.

    Go for it. It doesn’t change the fact that you have the right to expel unwanted occupants from both your house and your uterus, legal person or not.

  22. Lauren, since Robert has bestowed upon thee the lowliest of all titles, answer back equitably:

    “Robert, thou art baser than a cutpurse. Thou wayward brazen-faced putttock. Hence, horrible villain, or I’ll spurn thine eyes like balls before me; I’ll unhair thy head, Thou shalt be whipp’d with wire, and stew’d’in brine, smarting in lingering pickle.”

    Courtesy of our good friend, Bill Shakespeare.

  23. For the life of me, I cannot figure out how teachers can be republicans. If they care about kids, how can they support the party that cares about fetuses, and then once they are born, cuts any funding for them???

  24. The people at Balloon Juice have an excellent sense of humor. That’s why they linked to your article. They just figure our their readers are smart enough to know it’s an hysterical typo, without explaining it to them.

  26. Oh yeah, the Exponent is shit but it can be hilarious. And is it just me or do the comics look they’re drawn by four year olds on crack?

  27. I’ll report you the Humane Society! Even worse, I’ll turn you over to PETA. Those people are nuts.

  28. Why would PETA care about cats? Cats aren’t animals, they’re peeeeeeeee-pul. Just ask any of the ninnies who let the filth-laden freeloaders into their houses.

  29. Chet says: “Just as you have the right to expel people from your home that you don’t want there (security of property), even if they might suffer as a result; you have a right to expel a fetus from your body that you don’t want there, even if the fetus is harmed as a result.

    Security of the person. The government cannot dictate to any person who they must allow to live inside their own body, and that constitutional protection can’t be infringed simply to protect humans that have no legal personhood anyway.”

    Chet, I have to tell you I fell out of my seat laughing at that one. Did you actually think about that before you wrote it.

    First of all the amendment states that yourself and your belongings cannot be searched without a proper warrant (that is supported by reasonable cause), and the warrant must be very specific about what is to be searched and taken. There is nothing there that argues for a Constitutional right to an abortion. Somehow I don’t think the founders had abortion in mind when they made that amendment.. Try reading the Constitution for what it says and stop trying to read meaning into it that isn’t even there.

    I think it is also telling that abortion rights have never been argued using that justification. Try bringing up the Fourth Amendment as grounds for protected abortion and you’d probably get laughed out of law school.

    And if that is still not enough, lets analyze your logic, or the lack thereof:

    First, if we follow your argument to its logical conclusion then it would be legal for me to stick scissors in the skull of one of my children and suck their brains out with a vaccum the moment one of them pissed me off to the point where I wished they were gone. Instead of saying to my son: “Son, leave the house because you are making me mad and I don’t want you here,” I could just kill him and argue that I had a right to expel anyone I didn’t want in my home.

    Another example: A business man comes to my house to sell me a vaccum cleaner (my other one was ruined with my child’s brain matter). After a 15 minute presentation he tells me the price of the vaccum is $450. I don’t like the price and tell him to leave. Being a good business man he tries one last time to sell me on his product. By your logic the moment he tried to change my mind I could put a bullet in his head and argue that he was there when I didn’t want him to be. Oh man, Chet you just gave me an idea for a horror movie. A maniac who kills people and justifies it using the 4th Amendment.

    Finally, trying to equate an unborn baby to an unlawful government search, or even a legitimate case of protecting your property is deeply stupid. Any person whose brain hasn’t been sucked out with a vaccum cleaner can see that.

    I think I’m going to post your comment on some other blogs and sit back and watch people shred your asinine idea, after they are done laughing their asses off at you.

  31. This is why the pro-life movement is attacking this all wrong. What we should be doing is pushing for a federal law granting Constitutional citizenship to the unborn from the moment of conception.


    Good luck.

  32. oh, that’s a newsroom classic.

    @chris: the constitution doesn’t guarantee a right to be born either. in fact, the repeatedly says that it only applies to persons BORN in the u.s.

  34. Shhh, don’t tell anybody, but I’m the person that always where’s the monkey hat on campus.

    I heard about your blog from another feminist blog, just so you don’t feel weirded out or anything.

  35. First of all the amendment states that yourself and your belongings cannot be searched without a proper warrant (that is supported by reasonable cause), and the warrant must be very specific about what is to be searched and taken. There is nothing there that argues for a Constitutional right to an abortion.

    What the amendment states is that the right of the people to be secure in their persons and effects shall not be violated. That includes warrentless searches – by anyone – but is not limited to that.

    Somehow I don’t think the founders had abortion in mind when they made that amendment..

    Why do you say that? Abortion was legal, if uncommon, at the time. Perhaps they did indeed mean to bestow a right for women to determine who is allowed to occupy their own uterus at any given time; at any rate, that’s exactly what they did.

    I think it is also telling that abortion rights have never been argued using that justification.

    What are you talking about? The majority opinion of Roe v. Wade references the 4th amendment frequently. They call it “privacy”; I’ve chosen to use a different word because the word “privacy” had a different meaning during the time of the framers.

    First, if we follow your argument to its logical conclusion then it would be legal for me to stick scissors in the skull of one of my children and suck their brains out with a vaccum the moment one of them pissed me off to the point where I wished they were gone. Instead of saying to my son: “Son, leave the house because you are making me mad and I don’t want you here,” I could just kill him and argue that I had a right to expel anyone I didn’t want in my home.

    You can expel an adult or child via means short of lethal force, correct? You don’t have to immediately kill them, so your analogy is false. You’re not correctly extending my reasoning.

    Fetuses, sadly, cannot survive anywhere but their mother’s uterus, unfortunately. But that sad fact does not remove the constitutionally protected right of a woman to have absolute control over what other human beings are allowed to take residency inside her body.

    By your logic the moment he tried to change my mind I could put a bullet in his head and argue that he was there when I didn’t want him to be.

    No, once again, you’ve failed to properly extend my reasoning. You’re free to expel this man from your home, but only to use lethal force if necessary. But your example gives no reason that lethal force was necessary.

    What if the presence of the man in your home puts you at risk, and he informs you – and you believe him – that the only way he’s going to leave before he’s good and ready is in a bodybag? Now, is it really so unreasonable for you to expel the man via deadly force, if it comes to that? You’re really trying to tell me that you have to open your home to dangerous invaders, that you have no power to compel unwanted occupants to evict your private property?

    Finally, trying to equate an unborn baby to an unlawful government search, or even a legitimate case of protecting your property is deeply stupid.

    Oh, right. Because in your view, women’s bodies are not their own private property; they’re the shared property of the community of men until marriage, at which point they become the property of their husband.

    Sorry, my view is completely reasonable; it’s really just another way of stating what the court ruled in Roe v. Wade without using that confusing word “privacy.”

  36. Oh yeah, the Exponent is shit but it can be hilarious. And is it just me or do the comics look they’re drawn by four year olds on crack?

    You mean they carry Day By Day now?

  37. Somehow I don’t think the founders had abortion in mind when they made that amendment..

    Why should they have? They didn’t outlaw abortion — that wasn’t done until much later.

  38. Chris,

    Expelling!=shooting, knifing, beating, maiming, injuring in any form or fashion. Expelling=kicking someone out. If the salesperson in your example fails to leave the property after being told to leave, he’s there illegally. A woman’s body is her own property. A fetus is, in a certain and very valid sense, leeching off the woman. If the woman doesn’t want the fetus to leech her, she has every right to expel the fetus. It’s an incredibly impersonal way to look at abortion, but it is not invalid (IMHO).

    Expelling your living child from your house is different, because as the legal guardian of the child you have responsibility for the well-being of the child. You can’t just kick the child out because the child has legal personhood, and because you have that responsibility for her/him. A fetus does not have legal personhood, and so the potential parents are not legal guardians of a fetus, and can therefore choose to expel the fetus.

    I’ll repeat that in case you missed it the first time. A fetus does not have legal personhood. A child does.

  39. Chris:
    If you’re an English teacher, I’m very glad I never took a class from you.

    Let’s take the word “child” from:

    First, I’ve read the Constitution and I can’t for the life of me find where it says a mother has the right to terminate the life of her unborn child, don’t think Madison covered that one

    “child” does not equal “fetus” does not equal “zygote.”

    As long as you are willing to place a higher value on a potential child than you are on at the very minimum, assuming immediate adoption, nine months of an adult woman’s life and self-determination (to say nothing of the unintended consequences, whatever they may be, to employment (and finances), family, friends, and just plain life in general) then you have no business trying to convince anyone that your stance is somehow the more compassionate one.

    Note: no, I don’t think that pregnancy is inherhently and absolutely onerus – obviously it’s a condition that a good number of people seek out, or there wouldn’t be as many of us as there are. This does not mean everyone does, or even should seek it out, or that women should essentially be drafted for a year if they don’t want to be pregnant.

    Personally, that sounds like a violation of the Equal Protection clause, but hey.

  40. Unless I’m mistaken, you can find someone else to be the guardian of your child. If you’re a really unfit parent, the parental relationship is one that can be severed because the kid can be transfered. The kid is in that sense autonomous from you, and that’s perhaps more important than a legalistic claim of personhood, since the law could change at any time.

    A fetus on the other hand can’t be transfered without doing very real harm to its being because its very being is caught up in a very literal sense with a specific individual. A woman who feels herself an unfit parent at this stage doesn’t have the liberties that an unfit parent at the later stage would, and I think this is unfair.

    In a nutshell, I’m a little uneasy about relying upon a unique responsibility of birthparents. It takes a village… however, it don’t take no village to concieve, therefore it ain’t none of said village’s business.

  42. Why should they have? They didn’t outlaw abortion — that wasn’t done until much later.

    Thank you, zuzu!! We’ve got to mention this as often as possible when discussing the history of abortion. The states didn’t start to outlaw the procedure until the 1840’s or so, with most of the states falling in line by the late nineteenth century. Prior to this, even the Catholic church contended that a fetus is not a person until the “quickening,” or the moment when a woman felt it move within her womb. This generally happens in the fourth or fifth month, I believe.

    And readily available “medical” self-help books during this time period were only too willing to dispense advice on how to cause a miscarriage, although it wasn’t referred to as a miscarriage or an abortion, but as restoring normal menses. Of course most of the advice was wholly ludicrous and included drinking disgusting and often poisonous liquids, falling from stairs, or punching the belly repeatedly. But the fact remains that as a moral issue, abortion just…wasn’t one. Certainly not when the framers wrote the Constitution.

    Hell, even the Bible notes that when someone injures a pregnant woman and causes a miscarriage that they shall merely be levied a fine. It was seen as property damage, not murder.

  44. Lets also remember that abortion was not outlawed over moral concerns. It was the AMA (or their precurser) who lobbied to have it made illegal because it was incredibly unsafe for a woman to have an abortion (think 4-5x the death rate of caring the child to term). It was also performed by uncertified doctors. The AMA-like organization wanted to protect their patients from a dangerous medical procedure.

    To repeat. Abortion wasn’t made illegal until around the Civil War. Abortion was only made illegal because it was unsafe.

  45. NoVA, there is considerable evidence that the reasons for outlawing abortion were not because it was unsafe in comparison to other medical procedures, but because the AMA wanted to get midwives out of the birthing and pregnancy business. “Safety” within the context of abortion was part the rhetorical toolbox to do so.

  47. …the reasons for outlawing abortion were not because it was unsafe in comparison to other medical procedures, but because the AMA wanted to get midwives out of the birthing and pregnancy business. “Safety” within the context of abortion was part the rhetorical toolbox to do so…

    Also more growing babies meant more business.

  48. Madison did not cover a woman’s right to an abortion (or the decision as to what she wanted to do with her own body) because at the time the constitution was written women were chattel! They had no rights to ANYTHING! Hopefully we are now more than that (although there are those who contend just barely) and women should have the right to decide whether or not they want to harbor a parasite for 20 years. Because let’s face it – men have the right to make that decision from the get-go. If they don’t want to have a child, they just disappear. No one legislates against their right to choose! But if a woman does the same, she’s a whoring slut who goes against nature and all humankind should shun her.

    Get over it, if you don’t think women should have abortions, don’t have an abortion! Otherwise, let the individual involved make her own decisions. And puleeeeeeze, having to go notifiy their husband????? what if they don’t have same? brother? father? uncle? Let’s just go right back to the Victorian age, hmmmmm?

  49. Lauren:

    I’ve heard that arguement about midwives before and it seems to have some truth to it as well.

    B Moe:

    I’m pretty sure doctors got paid for the abortion too. And its not like people were real selective about how many kids they had in those days (no designer 2.1 kid families). But a possibility, as Lauren’s mention of midwives.

    My point was not necessarily to nail down the exact reason, but to point out that it was not concern over the ‘morality’ of abortion. It seems likely that it was a business/safety decision. This reinforces the concept that moral outrage over abortion is a very modern phenomenon that really started up after Roe.

  50. This does not mean everyone does, or even should seek it out, or that women should essentially be drafted for a year if they don’t want to be pregnant.

    Yup, aliens are coming around and making women pregnant who don’t want to be. “C’mere, you. ‘abracadabra!’ you’re pregnant!”

  51. This does not mean everyone does, or even should seek it out, or that women should essentially be drafted for a year if they don’t want to be pregnant.

    Yup, aliens are coming around and making women pregnant who don’t want to be. “C’mere, you. ‘abracadabra!’ you’re pregnant!”

    Well, I hear men are from Mars. But even the most insensitive I believe take a tad longer than ‘abracadabra’.

  52. Chris, there is no point in trying to sway people on abortion. They won’t move. Really, how many people do you know who are undecided about abortion? And if they aren’t, what are the chances of you changing their minds? Trying to tell someone who is pro-choice that abortion is wrong is like trying to tell an NRA member that the Second Amendment only applies to the Armed Forces and active police officers.

    If you’re curious how complex the argument can get, take the case of Scott Peterson, who was convicted of slaying both his wife and her unborn son. Well if a fetus isn’t a human life, how could he get convicted of two murders? Why then doesn’t the California state attorney’s office subpoena the medical records of every abortion clinic and charge every woman who has ever had an abortion with Capital Murder? After all, didn’t they do the same thing that Scott Peterson did?

    In my opinion, the Laci Peterson case wreaks havoc with the feminist argument for abortion. Feminists are very quick with hangman’s noose when it comes to prosecuting men who abuse women, both physically and emotionally. I studied under a feminist in college, Dr. Susan Marren, who stated that men convicted of these crimes “should be punished horribly.” So is it one murder charge or two? And if a pregnant woman is beaten to the point of miscarriage, then it’s just a felony battery case, correct? After all, that fetus wasn’t a human life…

    What say you?

  53. In my opinion, the Laci Peterson case wreaks havoc with the feminist argument for abortion.

    Why?

    California law had no feticide statute, because killing or assaulting the mother was crime enough. The only reason that the Peterson case was considered a double murder, IIRC, was that after Laci was killed, her body expelled the fetus, who lived for a time as an independent being before he died. And because Scott Peterson caused that, he caused the murder of his son as well as the murder of his wife.

  55. In my opinion, the Laci Peterson case wreaks havoc with the feminist argument for abortion. Feminists are very quick with hangman’s noose when it comes to prosecuting men who abuse women, both physically and emotionally.

    You should know better than to group all feminists together in this (or any) matter. I’ve always thought that applying murder charges on the basis of the death of a fetus was a slippery slope that’s being pushed not by feminists but by folks who hope to someday overturn Roe. The precedent being set by Peterson’s trial and other cases like this can be used in the future to argue against all abortions. The first degree murder charge against Peterson for killing his wife was enough. I also think he should rot in jail rather than be executed.

  56. All this discussion is premised on the idea that life begins at conception. Do we therefore think that ova and sperm, unlike all of our other cells, are dead? Life is of course continuous, because otherwise it would have to be restarted somehow in each generation. I for one routinely slaughter a few million living sperm a week and don’t give it a thought. What’s a few fetuses compared to that mayhem?

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  58. I am new to this website today, via scienceblogs.com, so I hope I am not intruding. Putting aside the morality of abortion, the reason the State must not interfere in this matter is this: If the State can stop a woman from having an abortion, it can also FORCE a woman to have an abortion. Perhaps what we need some sort of “I own my own body” amendment. I know what we don’t need is some creepy monarchist – excuse me- unitarian- on the SCOTUS who not only wants to undo the revolutionary war but who also tried TO KILL THE POPE (and the pope was probably even a unitarian!)

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