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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSCOTUS Rules Abortion Protestors' Baseball Bats Can Have No More Than Three Nails
Last edited Thu Jun 26, 2014, 01:02 PM - Edit history (3)
SCOTUSWatch Daily: In a landmark unanimous decision with immediate and far-reaching impact, the Supreme Court today sharply limited the number of nails that abortion protestors may drive through the baseball bats with which they harass and bludgeon women seeking to exercise constitutionally protected reproductive choice.The ruling was criticized by members of both sides of the abortion debate. Advocates of choice note that the decision leaves women vulnerable to intimidation and attack, while opponents reject any attempt to limit their arsenal in their ongoing and expanding war on women.
Writing for the court, Justice Elena Kagan cited First Amendment protections that preclude the outright prohibition of nails driven through baseball bats.
"Insofar as the bat has long been recognized as instrument of expression, we are constrained to allow reasonable modification so long as the basic design is preserved. Whereas a bat with three nails is still a bat, four nails would clearly turn it into something more akin to a porcupine, which historically does not enjoy first amendment protection."
Justice Clarence Thomas woke briefly from his millennial slumber to echo this view, though he suggests that future rulings may raise the number of nails permitted. "If I can have five nails on one hand," he rumbled, "the court sees no compelling reason why a bat shouldn't have at least an equal number."
Advocates of choice expressed disappointment but were not surprised by the ruling, seeing it as simply the latest in a long string of dubious victories for nominally faith-based organizations.
However, anti-choice crusader Eustus Porter complained even in the face of triumph. "How are we supposed to preserve the sanctity of life with a measly three nails? This is an outrageous overreach of judicial activism, and you can rest assured that we will appeal."
The case is Basic Decency v. People for a Return to the 18th Century.
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SCOTUS Rules Abortion Protestors' Baseball Bats Can Have No More Than Three Nails (Original Post)
Orrex
Jun 2014
OP
louis-t
(23,199 posts)1. Painful to laugh at this.....
Just gave it a smirk instead.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)2. Protest the banksters though and you'll have to do it in a "free speech zone".
Rider3
(919 posts)3. In today's culture, this could probably become true.
The only difference is that Clarence Thomas won't speak at all (which is ok with me, really).
I've posted a few of these unmistakably satirical pieces in the past, an in each case it seems that someone still mistakes it for a serious article.
I confess that I included the bit about Thomas in the hope that it was sufficiently unrealistic to make the tone of the post impossible to miss.