“Why did Alito quote an 18th century executioner of witches & an apologist of martial rape on the morality of abortion?
The leaked SCOTUS draft opinion written by Justice Sam Alito is already scaring millions of women, activists and other people who can get pregnant.
But Alito's draft opinion gets even scarier when he justifies his traditionalist approach to the constitution by quoting Hale, a jurist who defended martial rape, prosecuted innocent women to die for being 'witches" and more.
Alito Doesn't quote Hale about the appropriateness of law that establishes enumerated and unenumerated rights in a constitution and then subordinates the establishment of rights to the states... Strange.” - Thom Hartman
“Two treatises by Sir Matthew Hale,” Alito wrote in his argument to end legal abortion across America, “described abortion of a quick child who died in the womb as a ‘great crime’ and a ‘great misprision.’ See M. Hale, Pleas of the Crown.”
How interesting that Alito would cite Pleas of the Crown! That’s the text, published in 1736, 60 years after Hale’s death, that defended and laid the foundation for the marital rape exemption across the world. Let’s go straight to the text:
“For the husband cannot be guilty of a rape committed by himself upon his lawful wife for by their mutual matrimonial consent and contract the wife hath given up herself in this kind unto her husband which she cannot retract,” Hale wrote.
Allowing marital rape sounds pretty antiquated, but it was actually legal in many U.S. states up through the 1990s and continues to be allowed, or at least treated quite differently under the law, in some states, than non-spousal rape. Thanks, Mr. Hale!"
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The draft Supreme Court opinion striking down Roe v. Wade heavily references Sir Matthew Hale, a 17th century Brit who dehumanized women.
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