Alito’s Disingenuous Originalism in Dobbs
How this ruling takes America’s women back to the 18th century
In his written opinion in Dobbs (full text here), Justice Alito’s pseudo-legal “scholarship” is outrageous. He first claims the absence of the term ‘abortion’ in the Constitution. He then conducts a mock search for references to legal abortion in the history and traditions of the United States. Of course, he finds none.
But the “venerable Justice” conveniently ignores the disquieting fact that women couldn’t vote until 1920.
At the time of Roe in 1973, women had suffrage a mere 53 years of 200.
How would there be a history or tradition of legal abortion when half of the population — the half affected by pregnancy — had no vote? How would laws making abortion safe and legal have come about?
His condescending review of 16th, 17th, and 18th century “common law” authorities such as Blackstone, followed by his “historical precedent” review of 18th and 19th-century abortion law in the United States, does nothing more than whitewash (literally) and legitimize a patriarchal system that treated women as property until 1920.
Is this acceptable? Is this scrabbling backward in history to find something non-existent because of the very issue of women’s…
