alito respects a woman's right to choose

when it's convenient for him.

Justice Samuel Alito is no stranger to controversy, but his latest headline-grabber is outlandish even for him: not one, but two pro-trump flags were found flying outside his homes. They both symbolize unbridled MAGA-support and a denial of the 2020 election results, which has sparked a flurry of questions and debates. Is it a cry for help, a bold political statement, or just a curious case of free expression? While we’ll never know the intention behind the flags, they’re a violation of the conventional norms guiding the behavior of justices to at least give the impression of impartiality.

But here’s where the story gets even more gonzo. Alito’s defense was to singlehandedly blame his wife for putting up the flags, invoking that she “makes her own decision, and I have always respected her right to do so.”

Photo by Dalton Caraway on Unsplash

If trusting women with their own choices sounds familiar, it’s because Alito is the architect of the decision that gutted that very concept. Along with five other male judges (and a pick-me girl careerist), he overturned Roe v. Wade, a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1973 that recognized a woman's constitutional right to privacy, extending to her decision to have an abortion.

I guess Alito is a man of firm principles—firmly selective, that is.

His wife has the right to her own private decisions, but millions of american women… not so much! I guess in Alito-land, freedom of expression is paramount—unless, apparently, it involves the most private place of all: our own bodies.

Alito’s double standard is even richer when we consider that SCOTUS looks poised to start imposing restrictions on free speech related to abortion. While Alito hasn’t explicitly signaled an intent to target freedom of speech specifically regarding women’s reproductive choices, his opinions and comments on related cases have raised concerns among advocates that he might.

For instance, when it came to a California law requiring crisis pregnancy centers to provide information about abortion services, Alito joined the majority opinion, which struck down the California law, arguing that it compelled speech and thus violated the free speech rights of the crisis pregnancy centers, which are famously run by anti-abortion groups who lie to women. Based on his previous decisions, it’s not hard to see him strike down requirements for healthcare providers to inform patients about abortion services on free speech grounds, which could limit how abortion information is communicated to women.

Alito’s lust for the first amendment has also made him historically skeptical of laws that create buffer zones around abortion clinics to protect patients from harassment. If future cases challenge these zones, Alito's position could favor more lenient regulations on protests, which may affect the safety and access of patients seeking abortions. It’s not a stretch to assume that Alito’s decisions and judicial philosophy would make him support regulations that would limit the expression and dissemination of pro-choice information and therefore hinder women’s choices and rights even more than they are right now.

In other words, Alito's selective interpretation of "choice" seems more tangled than a flag in a stiff breeze. While he champions a woman's right to wave a MAGA banner high, his reluctance to extend the same fervor to her right to choose her own reproductive destiny creates a legal contortion worthy of a Simone Biles’ routine. Maybe Justice Alito should trade his judicial robe for a magician's cloak, because at this point, he’s a master of deception more than an arbiter of justice.