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

Rewriting History has a Long and Ugly History

  I n 1937, Nikolai Yezhov was the second most powerful man in the Soviet Union. He was head of Stalin’s secret police, the dreaded NKVD, which was rebranded years later as the KGB. Most important, he was, at least for the moment, in Stalin’s good graces, a precarious place to be. As he well knew. Yezhov was everything Stephen Miller wants to be. He was the guy responsible for carrying out what became known as the Great Terror. His job was the systematic and ruthless elimination, often through summary execution, of anyone Stalin suspected might be an “enemy of the people.” This was a lengthy list, numbering in the many thousands, and from all reports Yezhov made a substantial dent in it. That year, there was an official photo taken of Stalin, Yezhov, and two others  walking along a canal in Moscow.  (One of the others was Vyacheslav Molotov, whose notorious cocktails had not yet been introduced).  A mere three years later, Yezhov was out of the ...
2 comments
Read more

Let’s Just Call It Bozo Diplomacy

  “Peace talks” are usually plural — I can’t remember any war where there was just one, singular peace talk. Until now. One peace talk, one failure. The Vance delegation — is that an oxymoron? — picked up its toys and went home. They came back with nothing. Which is no more than what we deserve. I’m uncomfortable writing “we” in the context of some Trump-caused calamity, so please do not construe it as an endorsement of any word or deed being carried out in my country’s name. Take it to mean merely the “American side” of some international embarrassment. “We” is not me. I have no say in what “we” do. And the people who do have a say are idiots. At least I get to watch. We’ve arrived at the bargaining stage of the stupidest war in the nation’s history. How we got here is disgraceful. Whatever we come away with, however humiliating, serves us right. But whatever happens, it’s clear that we’re negotiating from weakness. We’re weak because we’ve been weakened ...
1 comment
Read more

The Rule of Law Strikes Back

  It’s hard to say what constitutes an emergency these days. We can look in any direction and see one coming. We constantly blink in disbelief that one deranged individual seems bent on bringing down the whole planet, for no discernible reason other than it looks like fun. Yes, for a certain kind of sociopath, blowing shit up does look like fun. The same sort of fun a delinquent middle schooler might have setting off illegal cherry bombs in the boys’ room. Same mentality, a billion times more dangerous. There’s a race against time going on. For reasons that have the whole world baffled, the only chance of stopping this monster is waiting for the midterms and hoping for the best. That’s, um, eight months away. As infuriating as that is to us, imagine what it’s like for people in other countries, none of whom have any control over the cataclysmic disruptions, born of sheer whimsy, that now threaten their lives. Living inside the economic blast radius of this ...
2 comments
Read more