Skip to main content

A Modest Proposal to Clarence Thomas

Dear Justice Thomas:

As you know, several states, newly emboldened by your colleagues’ overruling of Roe v. Wade, are now determined to enact laws defining life as beginning at fertilization — which is to say, at the happy moment when sperm meets egg.

I submit to you that this definition lacks both scope and ambition, and is not at all in keeping with your written concurrence with the majority opinion. While that concurrence is in many ways admirable, you nonetheless appear to place far too much value on the egg, and far too little on the sperm.

Sperm is, after all, the male component of the pregnancy process, and, as such, its rights surely must supersede those of any female component that might emerge later in that process.

Consequently, I feel your concurrence pays insufficient deference to the cornerstone of our culture, male dominance. It fails to grant personhood status to the sperm, despite the sperm’s preeminent standing, both as male and as unborn.

Therefore, in the interest of codifying such standing, I modestly submit that the time has come for the nation to enact a strict set of “Masturbation Acts,” and enforce them vigorously.

A Christian society demands that all sperm be reserved for deposit into a fertile female, willing or not, so that the fittest among them can successfully conquer its target egg. We must affirm, in law, the right of every sperm to compete for the impregnation of at least one egg in its lifetime.

A ban on male masturbation is key to meeting this societal imperative. Men shall be required to account for any and all sperm not currently engaged in egg conquest. Men must also prove that no sperm have been improperly handled or unlawfully discharged.

Under these seminal laws, every act of masturbation shall be considered a crime scene, and every man committing such an act shall be subject to charges of first-degree spermicide. Premeditation is assumed.

Performance of such an act in one’s sleep shall in no way mitigate the charges, since sleep, as is well-known, may be feigned.

Further charges may be codified based on extenuating circumstances. These might include masturbating while under the influence, while driving a motor vehicle, while piloting an aircraft, while operating heavy machinery, or while discharging a firearm. All except the last shall be deemed felonies.

Should you choose to commit to these Masturbation Acts, I am confident you will find many allies, including Justice Alito, a staunch originalist, who will be quick to affirm that nowhere in the Constitution do the Founders mention masturbation. Accordingly, there is no clear reason to believe masturbation to be a constitutionally-protected right.

Each sperm, on the other hand, must be thought of as a life in progress, and as such is endowed with rights that remain inalienable throughout the entirety of the long journey from ejaculation to birth.

At which point, of course, all rights expire.

It has been said that justice is blind. If so, I submit that excessive masturbation is surely the cause. You, sir, are invested with the power to cure this blindness, so that justice can see clearly what must be done in the name of personhood.

It’s time for you, Justice Thomas, to take matters into your own hands.

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Who’s Afraid of Drag Queen Story Hour?

Today’s Republican party comes with an ambitious agenda. In no particular order, it seeks to ban books, ban abortion, ban discussions of race, rewrite history, corrupt elections, mandate guns, whitewash school curricula, gut the social safety net, trade the rule of law for theocracy, and marginalize, wherever possible, Black people, women, immigrants, Jews, Muslims, and anyone who’s not white, straight, Christian, and cruel. This is not a comprehensive list. And yet, with so much on their plate — with so much havoc still to be wreaked, so many barbarous laws to be written, so many marginalized groups to torment — they can still find time to demonize drag queens. That’s right. Forget the dying planet, the killer weather, the crumbling infrastructure. Drag queens are the real problem. There are currently bills moving through the legislatures of fourteen states that would, in one way or another, criminalize drag performance. On the surface, they’re aimed at raising the risks — b

Whatever You Do, Don’t Get Pregnant in Texas

More and more, it seems, we must look to Texas for the worst that government has to offer. Texas is where Republicans get to be all that they can be. A place where there’s no right they can’t take away, no policy they can’t make crueler, no institution they can’t demolish and remake for the benefit of white Christian men, and the servitude of everyone else. But it’s on the abortion issue that Texas truly overachieves. Yes, Wyoming legislators can ban abortion pills. Yes, South Carolina legislators can propose the death penalty for both the woman and her doctor. But it’s to Texas we turn for real leadership in the subjugation of women. In Texas, anti-abortion legislation is old news. The laws are in place, and now it’s time to implement them. We’re just starting to see what Texas judges, prosecutors, and police have in mind — what they’re prepared to do to force women to either give birth or die trying. As expected, most of the action is in civil cases, at least for now, and it’

Dominion is Hitting Fox Where it Hurts

There’s a lot to like about the bombshell revelations coming out about Fox News. So much, to be sure, that it’s easy to lose sight of the actual lawsuit that has set those bombshells off. But Dominion Voting Systems, with its $1.6 billion defamation suit against Fox, is in the process of blowing a gaping hole in Fox’s entire business model. Seeing the discovery materials that have come out in court filings, we can now get a good look, not just at the depravity of Fox’s hosts, but also at the strength of Dominion’s case. This is surely the most serious challenge Fox has ever faced. Dominion, a company with deep pockets and an extraordinary set of grievances, is going for the throat. They’re calling Fox out in court, for the wanton spread of disinformation and propaganda, and they’re spelling out, in their filings, what that means for democracy. Let’s not be distracted by the salacious revelations themselves. Seeing Fox hosts exposed as snakes, liars, hypocrites, and haters of th