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

The Real Reason Jeopardy! Won’t Record to my DVR

   For years, my Xfinity DVR has faithfully recorded every episode of Jeopardy! . Lately, for some reason, it refuses. It records everything else. I can time-shift every series, every game, every movie. I can still record the local news on WDIV, the same NBC affiliate that carries Jeopardy. I just can’t record Jeopardy. I suspect Republicans. No, this is not an existential crisis, but it has been enough of an annoyance that I was cajoled — or perhaps threatened — by my family into investigating the mystery. So I turned to AI (they/them) to see if they might know something about it. I withheld my theory about Republicans. They walked me through all the usual diagnostic gyrations with the remote, and I dutifully followed all the steps I knew I’d already followed. They sagely deduced that the problem was not on my end, but Xfinity’s. They concluded there was a “DVR/guide-data problem” in the Xfinity system, and they found other users in the Detroit area who...

Putin is Still the Best Explanation for Everything

   “The world is laughing at America's politicians as we protect ships we don't own, carrying oil we don't need, destined for allies who won't help.” Trump wrote those words, or had them written for him. They appeared in a full-page ad in the New York Times on September 2, 1987, almost four decades ago. Trump paid for the ad — roughly $94,000 out of his own pocket, or somebody’s. With a few variations, it sounds like something he might have said last week, though the prose is more coherent than anything he could pull off these days. The ad carried this headline and subhead: “There's nothing wrong with America's Foreign Defense Policy that a little backbone can't cure. An open letter from Donald J. Trump on why America should stop paying to defend countries that can afford to defend themselves.” The “letter” puts forth a number of specious but now highly familiar grudges that Trump has long harbored against America’s allies. The vi...

The Trade War with Canada goes Asymmetric

   When Mark Carney shut down the so-called “trade talks” last week, the apparent reason was that US negotiators threw in several intolerable — and indeed insulting — provisions at the last minute. I have no trouble believing this, no matter what lies the regime tells. But to me, that last-minute bait-and-switch was simply rancid icing on a poison cake. The real outrage is that anyone needed to “talk” at all. There was already a major trade agreement, in force for years, not perfect but perfectly workable. There was nothing that needed negotiating. There were no disagreements in any real sense, only the feigned grievances and warped ambitions of a single malignant narcissist with no impulse control. This was never a trade talk, it was a shakedown. It was Trump in mob-boss mode, the playground bully stealing your lunch money. Most people I know hate bullies, so it’s especially upsetting to see my country acting like one. The US came to the table in bad faith,...