Things were not quiet on the western front Tuesday morning over at CNN as Early Start and New Day were despondent over the leaked Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, arguing it could lead to women becoming “second-class citizens” with things such as gay marriage and sodomy being deemed illegal to the point that a “right to privacy” is abolished.
With Early Start co-host Laura Jarrett (and daughter of Obama confidante Valerie Jarrett) off, the show’s left-wing analysis was left to legal analyst Areva Martin, who said she’s had feelings of “[a]bsolute utter shock, dismay, disappointment, and even anger” and then stated as fact that “many rights...we as citizens enjoy...not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution” could be “eviscerat[ed].”
Martin cited broad examples such as “the right to privacy, the right to contraception” before claiming that women are being “regulat[ed]...to second-class citizens, giving men more power, more control over their bodies, more freedoms than what would be afforded to women.”
Earth to Martin: Take a look at the picture of the Court that handed down Roe v. Wade.
A few moments later, Martin refused to denounce the leak and how it’s created a substantial breach in trust between justices and their clerks. Instead, Martin lamented the Court’s legitimacy had already been sullied by Justice Clarence Thomas, his wife Ginni, and “the treatment of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.”
Naturally, Martin refused to cite the Bork, Kavanaugh, and Thomas hearings and their negative ramifications.
Moving to New Day, abortion supporter, chief legal analyst, and Zoom exposer Jeffrey Toobin’s mood hadn’t improved from Monday night.
Toobin insisted Justice Alito’s opinion striking down Roe would affect “the right to privacy, which is implicit” and that “same right” is “recognized in saying states can't ban married couples from buying birth control” and “can't ban consensual sodomy between people of the same sex, or different sexes.”
Perhaps it was Toobin’s personal connection to abortion that had him spew this lie about the draft opinion:
That there are certain regions of people's lives that the legislatures may not legislate in. This is a constitutional right. What Justice Alito's opinion — draft opinion says is that there is no such thing as a right to privacy. So, abortion is not protected. Private sexual matters are not protected. Purchase of birth control is not protected by the Constitution. So, that opinion is an invitation, not just for states to ban abortion, but for states to regulate in entire new areas that previously had been off-limits.
Fellow liberal legal analyst Jennifer Rodgers was also at the table and insisted gay marriage is in danger.
Rodgers said it’s “not” safe “at all” as “[t]his notion that the difference between all these privacy rights is that one involves an unborn being, whether you call it a child, a fetus, whatever, that's nowhere either, so this is just semantics.”
In the show’s second hour, Josh Gerstein — the Politico reporter behind the leak — joined his fellow progressives in questioning the notion that Americans will have their privacy rights deeply eroded (click “expand”):
BERMAN: There are those looking at this, Josh, again, raising questions about, well, is this ruling, as written in this draft, does it only have an impact on abortion or could it have an impact on other decisions decided from the 60s, really in the 60s and the 70s, that found a certain right to privacy, starting were with contraception, starting with interracial marriage, all the way up until same-sex marriage. Alito seemed to anticipate that criticism, didn’t he?
GERSTEIN: Right, he tries to kind of ring-fence abortion in this opinion and repeatedly says, we're only talking abortion here....[T]he question is can you pluck abortion out of our jurisprudence and say, “oh, we're going to get rid of this right that we've had for a half a century” and leave all those other things you mentioned of like contraception, for example, or the right to marry someone of a different race. Can you just say that those things are all going to remain and we just pull this one thing out? And you can even bring it forward to more recent decisions, for example, guaranteeing a right to same-sex marriage based in part on the same kinds of principles that it's really no business of the government whether you choose to marry someone of the opposite sex or the same sex. Will you about able to separate these issues and put abortion in a different box? This opinion, he refers to it as a decision concerning — concerning potential life, and that those other kinds of issues don't involve potential life.
Tuesday’s baseless fear-mongering was brought to you by advertisers such as Farmer’s Insurance and T-Mobile. Follow the links to see their contact information at the MRC’s Conservatives Fight Back page.
To see the relevant CNN transcripts from May 3, click “expand.”
CNN’s Early Start with Christine Romans and Laura Jarrett
May 3, 2022
5:04 a.m. EasternCHRISTINE ROMANS: Just talk to me about your initial reaction to this bombshell news overnight.
AREVEA MARTIN: Shock, Christine. Absolute utter shock, dismay, disappointment, and even anger. When you read what Politico reported about this draft opinion, what Alito says essentially is that the word abortion is not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution. And although that is accurate, there are many rights that are protected that we as citizens enjoy, many freedoms and rights that are not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution. And my biggest fear is that this is not the end, this is the beginning of the evisceration of many of the rights we enjoy, such as the right to privacy, the right to contraception. My — also — big fear is that this opinion affirms that women don't have control or agency over their reproductive health, over the rights to make choices about their bodies and thereby regulating women to second-class citizens, giving men more power, more control over their bodies, more freedoms than what would be afforded to women. Very, very disturbed by this draft opinion.
(....)
5:08 a.m. Eastern
ROMANS: This leak — this is the first major leak to come out of the nation's highest court. I mean, this is really — the leak itself is just stunning. The contents of the leak equally stunning. Does this scar, you think, the reputation of the Supreme Court? What happened here?
MARTIN: Yeah, I think when you look at this, Christine, in addition to what we've seen by Clarence Thomas, the comments and statements made by Clarence Thomas, his wife, the treatment of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, it’s hard to imagine that the U.S. public has any confidence or trust in the Supreme Court. And also, Christine, it’s important to note that the court represents a viewpoint that is radically different than most Americans. The majority of Americans believe that women should have the absolute right and control over their reproductive health, the decision to have or not have an abortion. So here we have nine justices — well, in this case five according to this article — that are voting in a way that is completely inconsistent where most Americans are on an issue as fundamental as the rights that women have to control their own health.
—
CNN’s New Day with John Berman and Brianna Keilar
May 3, 2022
6:06 a.m. EasternJOHN BERMAN: Almost immediately when this decision comes out, Jeffrey, Alito writes in this draft, Roe was “egregiously wrong from the start.” He then goes on to say it was exceptionally weak. Those words are crucial here for him in the case that he's making. Why?
JEFFREY TOOBIN: Because the right that is described in Roe v. Wade is — the basis is the right to privacy, which is implicit, according to Roe v. Wade, in several different constitutional provisions. It's the same right, the right to privacy, that the court recognized in saying states can't ban married couples from buying birth control. It's the same provision that they said states can't ban consensual sodomy between people of the same sex, or different sexes. That there are certain regions of people's lives that the legislatures may not legislate in. This is a constitutional right. What Justice Alito's opinion — draft opinion says is that there is no such thing as a right to privacy. So, abortion is not protected. Private sexual matters are not protected. Purchase of birth control is not protected by the Constitution. So, that opinion is an invitation, not just for states to ban abortion, but for states to regulate in entire new areas that previously had been off-limits.
BERMAN: I want to come back to that idea of throwing open the entire idea of a right to privacy.
(....)
6:07 a.m. Eastern
TOOBIN: And you know, the Supreme Court almost always honors precedent. But it doesn't always honor precedent. And perhaps the most famous example was in 1954, Brown v. Board of Education overturned a decision from the late 19th Century that — Plessy v. Ferguson, where the Supreme Court said in 1954, no, states cannot have separate schools for black people, and white children and black children. So, there is some history of the court overturning precedent. It's rare. It's exceptional and it is done only when a majority of the court feels like the prior precedent is completely discredited. You know, the — the court recognizes if they overturn precedence a lot, the — the court loses all intellectual and institutional respectability. The difference between the Supreme Court and the Congress is that the court is supposed to be a continuing body that respects its history. There's no requirement that Congress pass laws consistent with prior laws at all. That's what makes the court different in theory, but with decisions like this, it becomes more like Congress.
BERMAN: Justice Alito apparently, anticipating your criticism, or your analysis, the idea that this throws open the right to overturn anything decided on the basis of a constitutional right to privacy. He writes, Jennifer: “The abortion right is also critically different from any other right that this court has held to fall within the 14th Amendment's protection of liberty. Roe’s defenders characterized the abortion right as similar to rights recognized in past decisions involving matters such as intimate sexual relations, contraception, and marriage. But abortion is fundamentally different,” he says, “because it involves an un-born human being.” So he writes that in this draft decision. Does that mean that same-sex marriage is safe?
JENNIFER RODGERS: No, not at all. I mean, where is that in the Constitution? I mean, talk about what is and isn't in the Constitution. This notion that the difference between all these privacy rights is that one involves an unborn being, whether you call it a child, a fetus, whatever, that's nowhere either, so this is just semantics. I mean, he's just trying to distinguish abortion from these rights, because he knows people are going to go crazy and say, well, what about gay marriage? What about all this other stuff? But anything that is based on this right of privacy, and all of these things have been, traditionally, by the court since the 1960s, are now in jeopardy.
(....)
7:06 a.m. Eastern
BERMAN: So, when we're talking about this language here, some of this language could change in ways that does substantively alter — perhaps — the meaning of all this. There are those looking at this, Josh, again, raising questions about, well, is this ruling, as written in this draft, does it only have an impact on abortion or could it have an impact on other decisions decided from the 60s, really in the 60s and the 70s, that found a certain right to privacy, starting were with contraception, starting with interracial marriage, all the way up until same-sex marriage. Alito seemed to anticipate that criticism, didn’t he?
JOSH GERSTEIN: Right, he tries to kind of ring-fence abortion in this opinion and repeatedly says, we're only talking abortion here. This decision has no impact on any of those other decision, which critics have said are based on more broad and vague themes in the Constitution. Arguably, the word privacy not really appearing there, obviously, the word abortion not appearing in that document drafted in the 18th — the 18th century. But the question is can you pluck abortion out of our jurisprudence and say, “oh, we're going to get rid of this right that we've had for a half a century” and leave all those other things you mentioned of like contraception, for example, or the right to marry someone of a different race. Can you just say that those things are all going to remain and we just pull this one thing out? And you can even bring it forward to more recent decisions, for example, guaranteeing a right to same-sex marriage based in part on the same kinds of principles that it's really no business of the government whether you choose to marry someone of the opposite sex or the same sex. Will you about able to separate these issues and put abortion in a different box? This opinion, he refers to it as a decision concerning — concerning potential life, and that those other kinds of issues don't involve potential life. But, obviously, many Americans might disagree and I suspect that the dissents you'll see in this case are going to really zero in on that question so, could this decision have a more dramatic impact despite the assurances that Alito tries to give in this draft opinion?
