Court’s Media Leak Is No Insurrection

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Abstract

ts assault on the Supreme Court with an unprecedented breach of confidentiality, clearly meant to intimidate,” said Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, who raised his fist in support of those who later stormed the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 insurrection.</p><p id="c12c">The leaker has yet to be identified. It could be someone opposed to the opinion. Or, it may be a supporter aiming to keep justices in line before the official ruling in June. Chief Justice John Roberts said the court’s marshal will investigate; an estimated 40 people had access to the opinion.</p><p id="47f7">This is hardly a crime, since it was not a classified document. Yet Republican officials demand immediate attention by the Justice Department, now focused on prosecuting planners of the real insurrection, which some in the GOP call a patriotic exercise.</p><p id="7077" type="7">The court is not the victim here. It’s the poor women who can’t afford to go out of state for abortions; rape and incest victims with no legal options.</p><p id="e5cd">And why all this outrage over a leak anyway? Although it is unusual for an draft opinion to be published before it’s official, the 1973 <i>Roe </i>decision was published a day before the ruling.</p><p id="8b26">Leaks to the media are the lifeblood of Washington governance and politics. And as much as some would like to deny it, this court is not above the political fray — especially since it undermined essential legislation like the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Options

</p><p id="815d">But the public is expected to be outraged that the court did not have the privacy it wanted to fine-tune and then unveil a culture-altering opinion written in February.</p><p id="8c07">We are expected to ignore that the opinion denies a woman the right to make private decisions about her own body. And that its broad reasoning against privacy rights also endangers decisions on conception and both interracial and same-sex marriage.</p><p id="3f5a">The court is not the victim here. It’s the poor women who can’t afford to go out of state for abortions; rape and incest victims with no legal options; and struggling mothers who live in states that provide little aid for children and families.</p><p id="bdcd">All the right-wing “whataboutism,” fingerpointing and fake outrage will not be able to erase that damage.</p><div id="28a4" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/push-back-against-courts-abortion-draft-opinion-f5bd5d880bd4"> <div> <div> <h2>Push Back Against Court’s Abortion Opinion</h2> <div><h3>Steps to take to temper a radical attack on privacy rights</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/1*8jkgycCG6e8oHY-IJ6nT6A.jpeg)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div></article></body>

Ignore right-wing distraction from anti-abortion opinion

The reaction of Republican lawmakers and right-wing media to the leak of the U.S. Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe v. Wade would be comical, if the issue were not so deadly serious.

First of all, they got what they wanted after maneuvering to install right-wing justices with the mission to overturn abortion rights. Yet, they want us to believe they are so traumatized by the leak that they could not celebrate — or even comment on — a decision so contrary to public opinion. They were unprepared to gloat at this time.

Instead, almost in unison, they attacked Democrats for launching “an insurrection against the court.”

“The left continues its assault on the Supreme Court with an unprecedented breach of confidentiality, clearly meant to intimidate,” said Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, who raised his fist in support of those who later stormed the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 insurrection.

The leaker has yet to be identified. It could be someone opposed to the opinion. Or, it may be a supporter aiming to keep justices in line before the official ruling in June. Chief Justice John Roberts said the court’s marshal will investigate; an estimated 40 people had access to the opinion.

This is hardly a crime, since it was not a classified document. Yet Republican officials demand immediate attention by the Justice Department, now focused on prosecuting planners of the real insurrection, which some in the GOP call a patriotic exercise.

The court is not the victim here. It’s the poor women who can’t afford to go out of state for abortions; rape and incest victims with no legal options.

And why all this outrage over a leak anyway? Although it is unusual for an draft opinion to be published before it’s official, the 1973 Roe decision was published a day before the ruling.

Leaks to the media are the lifeblood of Washington governance and politics. And as much as some would like to deny it, this court is not above the political fray — especially since it undermined essential legislation like the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

But the public is expected to be outraged that the court did not have the privacy it wanted to fine-tune and then unveil a culture-altering opinion written in February.

We are expected to ignore that the opinion denies a woman the right to make private decisions about her own body. And that its broad reasoning against privacy rights also endangers decisions on conception and both interracial and same-sex marriage.

The court is not the victim here. It’s the poor women who can’t afford to go out of state for abortions; rape and incest victims with no legal options; and struggling mothers who live in states that provide little aid for children and families.

All the right-wing “whataboutism,” fingerpointing and fake outrage will not be able to erase that damage.