The Dissenters Say You're Not Hysterical

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Irin Carmon
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I wrote about today's abortion dissent — a loser's game by definition, but unusually blunt and clarifying, with a central message: Don't let anyone tell you you're overreacting.

nymag.com
The Dissenters Say You’re Not Hysterical
“The majority tells everyone not to worry,” the dissenting justices write. But they’re ringing the alarm.
12:55 PM · Jun 24, 2022

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/06/supreme-court-abortion-roe-v-wade-dissent-say-youre-not-hysterical.html

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“Whatever the exact scope of the coming laws, one result of today’s decision is certain: the curtailment of women’s rights, and of their status as free and equal citizens,” justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan write in what is by any standards, but especially the mealymouthed norms of today’s Supreme Court, a blunt and righteously angry document.

A judicial dissent is by definition a loser’s game, and there are only three losers left to speak on today’s Supreme Court as six justices eviscerate reproductive freedom for millions of Americans. That doesn’t mean a dissent is meaningless.

When the majority opinion authoritatively tells us not to believe what is happening in front of our own eyes (or what will happen next as a result of its decision), when it sets terms that erase the impact on actual people’s lives — it helps to have something in black and white that says to the public, You are not crazy. This is what the 66-page dissent by Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan does.

The authors took evident care to make themselves as clear as possible to the public and not just to the legal elite. A by-product of a draft majority opinion leaking in May is that they also respond not only to their conservative colleagues but to the national conversation since then, including the claim that liberals are being hysterical about the ramifications of Roe being overturned.

*snip*