—
In his rush to dismantle Roe v Wade precedent, Justice Alito cites the 15th century “wisdom” of 4 jurists from Old England.
Unbelievable.
SCOTUS DOBBS Decision — Syllabus [pg 3]
[...]
Respondents’ argument that this history does not matter flies in the face of the standard the Court has applied in determining whether an asserted right that is nowhere mentioned in the Constitution is nevertheless protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. The Solicitor General repeats Roe’s claim that it is “doubtful . . . abortion was ever firmly established as a common-law crime even with respect to the destruction of a quick fetus,” 410 U. S., at 136, but the great common-law authorities -- Bracton, Coke, Hale, and Blackstone -- all wrote that a post-quickening abortion was a crime. Moreover, many authorities asserted that even a pre-quickening abortion was “unlawful” and that, as a result, an abortionist was guilty of murder if the woman died from the attempt. The Solicitor General suggests that history supports an abortion right because of the common law’s failure to criminalize abortion before quickening, but the insistence on quickening was not universal, see Mills v. Commonwealth, 13 Pa. 631, 633; State v. Slagle, 83 N. C. 630, 632, and regardless, the fact that many States in the late 18th and early 19th century did not criminalize pre-quickening abortions does not mean that anyone thought the States lacked the authority to do so.
—
In order to argue that abortion has never been protected in America, Alito turns to the “legal authority” of the colonial Crown — all the way back to King Henry the III, himself.
www.britannica.com
Sir Matthew Hale — English legal scholar
[...]
In 1660 Hale was appointed chief baron of the Exchequer, the court principally concerned with matters of crown revenue, and in the same year he was knighted. Between 1666 and 1672 he spent much time on the statutory tribunal that resolved disputes between owners and tenants of property destroyed in the
Great Fire of London in 1666. In 1671 he became chief
justice of the King’s Bench, an office he relinquished in 1676 when his health began to fail.
www.britannica.com
Sir William Blackstone — English jurist
[...]
In 1770 Blackstone refused the office of solicitor general but accepted that of judge of the Court of Common Pleas. In the 10 years of his judgeship he administered the law satisfactorily but attained no special distinction.
www.britannica.com
Henry de Bracton — British jurist
[...]
By 1245 Bracton was an itinerant justice for King Henry III, and from about 1247 to 1257 he was a judge of the Coram Rege (“Before the Monarch”), which afterward became the Court of Queen’s (or King’s) Bench. Like most other English lawyers of his time, he was a priest; from 1264 he was chancellor of Exeter Cathedral.
—
Didn’t we fight the American Revolutionary War to break free from these oppressors from afar?
Simply unbelievable — that Justice Altio is relying on these historical ghosts, to revoke the established Liberties of American Women. To return American Women back to the age of Patriarchal rule, back to Medieval Feudalism. To the rules and confines, of old England Lawyers … Very VERY OLD.
I doubt these “olden guys” and or many of their common-law beliefs, are enshrined in the American Constitution either, you know that singular critique of Roe, that Alito hangs his pathetic 3-cornered hat on.
— —