WARNING: The following post contains strong language.
The hysteria that has been boiling over since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade was joined by comedian Jon Stewart last Thursday, on his The Problem podcast. And as you can see from the headline, things reached a fever pitch. According to this amateur legal scholar and bioethicist, the ruling meant that the government would be allowed to forcefully have your organs harvested if it meant it could save a life. He also repeatedly suggested the Court was “corrupt” and “the Fox News of justice.”
Speaking to the liberal cast of the Strict Scrutiny podcast, Stewart made his morbid prediction while admitting, “You may say I'm being crazy.” He then suggested certain states would find “the woman who’s having a baby is not as important as the potential of that life…”
And going down his warped line of reasoning, he argued the pro-life position was “to save a life, autonomy means nothing.” Thus, since “we have an organ shortage in this country” and “organ donation saves lives” they would be able to “go to a person and say ‘give me one of your kidneys because it’s going to save this person’s life.’”
University of Michigan Law School assistant professor Leah Litman, a co-host for the Strict Scrutiny podcast, built off of Stewart by claiming it would only be that way for women. “Is that person a woman or a man? Like, women, don’t have bodily autonomy. Not sure about the men’s though,” she said. “Right, the men still do,” Stewart agreed.
Earlier in their discussion, Stewart flaunted his selective use of history as he overlooked what the Democratic Party started with the Supreme Court nomination of Robert Bork and suggested the conservative justices committed “perjury” in their hearings. He went on to assert that if they were more forthright about their “ideological bearing … you would respect their honesty and integrity.”
Of course, this claim of lying under oath to Congress has been roundly debunked and even liberal justices were dodgy with their answers.
“But this makes the Court a cynical pursuit. It feels like the Fox News of justice,” he whined. “That, this is a political – having nothing to do with scholarship or anything else. This was a desire in search of a rationale.”
Stewart would also claim the right does not have true legal scholars (using air quotes for them) and took a swipe at originalism as a way to interpret the Constitution:
And the reason they call themselves originalists is the same reason they quote The Bible: it’s dogma, it’s dead people, it’s people you cannot argue with. This text is – It’s fundamentalism. It’s saying this text is sacrosanct. Even that gun shit … None of this is ordained by God of a burning bush or any of that.
He would then go on to parrot the lie that the Second Amendment was meant to secure slavery, not because the colonies had just used their personal firearms to overthrow a tyrannical government that wanted to take them at one point.
“In my mind, the idea that this was based in any kind of reasoned debate or philosophical education – the Supreme Court is now the Fox News of justice in my mind,” he proclaimed to his writers Tocarra Mallard and Kris Acimovic near the top of the show. Teeing up this rant:
It is a cynical pursuit in the same way that Fox News would come out with ‘we’re fair and balanced’ under the patina of what would be a high-status pursuit to the betterment of society, journalism. They are a cynical political arm. When you look at the ridiculous kabuki theater now of justice confirmation, where they can just go out there and just fucking lie, like if this were about debate, then they would’ve understood what perjury meant. But they are now the Fox News of justice. I mean, there is no consistency. States can’t regulate guns, but they can regulate ["uteri"], you know?
And before going to the panel, Stewart invoked Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and opined about how the conservative justices are people who are trying to bend the moral arc of the universe away from justice.
“It’s very clear that the Supreme court is bullshit. Like, it’s a real bullshit institution” one of his writers declared following the panel, undermining and destroying our democracy. “It’s just another cog in an ideological machine,” Stewart agreed. “And the crazy part is, we imbue such high status in it and such elevated motivation. And it’s just like I was saying, like, it’s Fox News for justice.”
They also took issue with the fact we call those who sit on the bench “justice.” And from there they suggested the conservative justices don’t love the law and accused them, without evidence, of being “bought and paid for on the back end” by dark interest “patrons” who they have “brunch” with.
