Pro-Abortion Protesters Attack the Rule of Law

Pro-abortion protesters marched at the private homes of conservative Supreme Court justices and churches and pro-abortion extremists firebombed a pro-life organization.

Summary

Pro-abortion protesters marched at the private homes of conservative Supreme Court justices and churches in response to the leaked draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade.

• Protesters from the pro-abortion groups “ShutDownDC’ and “Ruth Sent Us” marched outside the homes of conservative Supreme Court justices John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh, and Samuel Alito over the weekend. These protests came after “Ruth Sent Us” doxed the justices and published their home addresses online.
• Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) condemned the protests, saying, “trying to scare federal judges into ruling a certain way is far outside the bounds of First Amendment speech or protest. It is an attempt to replace the rule of law with the rule of mobs.”
• Protesters dressed in what appeared to be red gowns from “The Handmaid’s Tale” disrupted a Mother’s Day mass at Catholic cathedral in Los Angeles.
• Wisconsin police are investigating an apparent Molotov cocktail attack at the Madison headquarters of Wisconsin Family Action, a pro-life group. “If abortions aren’t safe then you aren’t either” was graffitied on an outside wall.
• The US Senate unanimously passed a bill beefing up security for members of the Supreme Court and their immediate families in the wake of the protests and attempted intimidation.
• Outgoing White House Press Secretary / incoming MSNBC host Jen Psaki belatedly condemned “violence, threats, or vandalism” on Monday. On Friday she refused to condemn the protests at Justices’ homes, only saying the president “believes in peaceful protest.”

• The Washington Post editorial board urged protesters to “leave the justices alone at home” and characterized them as “part of a disturbing trend in which groups descend on the homes of people they disagree with and attempt to influence their public conduct by making their private lives – and, often, those of their families and neighbors – miserable.”
• NBC News scoffed at the protests, saying “Brett Kavanaugh is not in danger – unlike the abortion precedent he’s ready to overturn.”
• The Daily Beast urged readers to “stop with the pearl-clutching over protests at Supreme Court Justices’ homes,” calling them “legal, ethically justifiable and necessary.”

• Fox News spoke with faith leaders, who urged peace and prayers for life while condemning the “utter brokenness” of protesters who disrupted religious services on Mother’s Day.
• National Review condemned “Biden’s thug government” and accused the administration of being complicit in the “extortionate, norm-busting, burn-it-down id of the woke progressivism they extol.”
• The Washington Free Beacon covered the Wisconsin firebombing by pro-abortion extremists, contrasting the attack with media characterizations of the protests as “mostly peaceful.”

Author’s Take

Protesting at the private homes of Supreme Court justices is an attack on the rule of law, full stop. It’s wrong and should be unacceptable in a democratic republic. Large crowds showing up at private residences, with the justices’ families and in some cases young children present, is an attempt at intimidation, pure and simple.

It’s not hard to imagine how the left would react if the roles were reversed. If peaceful gun rights activists legally protesting a Supreme Court case threatening the Second Amendment marched in front of Sonia Sotomayor or Elena Kagan’s house, the left would treat this like a five-alarm fire and as an assault on democracy on par with the January 6 riots. We would be treated to endless coverage about the “racist, sexist, homophobic” protesters and highlighting Kagan and Sotomayor’s race and gender to condemn the protests – meanwhile, the attempts at intimidation against the diverse slate of conservative justices is met with relative silence if not tacit support from the media and the Biden Administration.

These protesters want to short-circuit the constitutional order. People with the time, income, job flexibility, and geographic proximity necessary to launch a sustained protest at multiple homes are not representative of the voting public. This group of overwhelmingly white, upper-income, and privileged residents of the DC metro area must not be allowed to intimidate the Supreme Court into bending to their will. These protests may have just increased the Justices’ resolve – we will soon find out.

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© Dominic Moore, 2022