Over 470 members of the writing, publishing, and literary communities have opposed the forthcoming book by Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett.
The petition was signed by editors, authors, and publishers from Random Penguin House, whose subsidiary Sentinel signed Barrett to a $2 million book deal in 2021.
Petitioners allege that Barrett’s stance in the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade breaches the Code of Conduct of parent firm Bertelsmann.
In June 2022, she was among those in authority who voted to repeal women’s abortion rights in the United States.
The code respects and adheres to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations, which recognizes abortion as a human right.
The petition states, “This is not just a book with which we disagree, and we are not arguing for censorship.”
Many of us work everyday with texts that are politically incongruent with our own. Rather, this is an example of a corporation using enormous profits to fund the eradication of human rights.
Barrett (images) signed a $2 million contract with Sentinel, the company’s conservative imprint, in 2021.
More than 470 people have signed a petition against Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s book deal with Penguin Random House.
The premise of Barrett’s book is a discussion of how judges are banned from allowing their emotions to influence their judgements.
This premise, according to the petition, conflicts with Barrett’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Yet, it appears that this is precisely what Coney Barrett has done, imposing her own religious and moral agenda on all Americans while adopting the vocabulary of fairness, for which Penguin Random House has agreed to pay her $2 million.
In addition to opposing Barrett’s language, the petition asserts that publishers must keep their commitment to free expression with due caution.
It continues, “We realize that harm is done to a democracy not only through censorship, but also through attacks on inherent human rights.”
She is not the only member of the Supreme Court with a book deal.
Barrett is not on his own: The pictured Justice Clarence Thomas won $1.5 million for his memoir.
She is not the only member of the Supreme Court with a book deal; Justices Stephen Breyer and Neil Gorsuch have both authored works on legal and societal topics.
But she has received the largest advance: Clarence Thomas received $1.5 million for his memoir, while Sonia Sotomayor received $1,175,000 for hers.
Although federal law does not prohibit judges from getting compensated for publishing books, such a big advance creates appearance concerns, according to Charles Geyh, a law professor at Indiana University’s Maurer School of Law who specializes in judicial ethics.
Geyh stated, “Judge Barrett may be convinced that the book project will not distract her from her judicial duties, and she may be correct.”
‘But from the perspective of the typical American earning $40,000 annually, the optics of a judge — who is paid $250,000 in tax funds to do the people’s business as a justice — moonlighting for $2 million on a book deal are troubling,’ the author writes.
Stephen Gillers, a researcher of judicial ethics at the New York University School of Law, stated that he does not see a problem with the agreement.
“The reality of the transaction and the amount of the advance in and of itself do not present an ethical dilemma for the judge,” Gillers said. “However, she will have to recuse herself in instances in which the publisher is a party.”
Thomas received a substantial fee for his memoir, while Justice Sonia Sotomayor (above) received $1,175,000.
Before the election, Barrett, 49, was confirmed by the Senate to succeed the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
She was not supported by a single Democrat. Democrats criticized then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for advancing her nomination during a presidential election year after blocking President Barack Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, in Obama’s final year in office.
The nomination of Coney created a conservative majority of 6-3 on the court. She was the last of Trump’s three Supreme Court nominations.
Now, some liberal Democrats are pressing to increase the number of Supreme Court justices. President Joe Biden has established a panel to investigate the matter.
Biden, in response to the court’s decision to overrule Roe v. Wade, stated, “The court is literally reversing 150 years of American history.”
In June of this year, the Supreme Court of the United States overruled Roe v. Wade, forcing many women back to risky, illegal abortions.
Before the 1973 case, which provided a constitutionally protected right to abortion for all American women regardless of the state in which they resided, some women resorted to extreme measures to terminate their pregnancies, and in doing so, some lost their lives.
Some women used risky methods to terminate undesired pregnancies, including “coat hanger” abortions, pushing themselves down stairs on purpose, and even consuming poison.
Before the 1973 landmark judgement that legalized abortion in all 50 states, abortion in the United States was restricted.
This summer’s verdict stated: “The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe and Casey are overturned; and the ability to control abortion is restored to the people and their elected officials.”
The overturning of the law allowed states to establish their own rules controlling the procedure.
Roe v. Wade: The 1973 Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion in the United States
Ten years after the Supreme Court ruling, Norma McCorvey was sighted in 1983.
In Roe v. Wade, decided in 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court established a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion. The momentous decision legalized abortion nationwide, but it polarized public opinion and has since been under fire.
Norma McCorvey, a 22-year-old Texas resident who was unmarried and seeking an abortion for an unwelcome pregnancy, brought the lawsuit in 1971.
State laws prohibiting abortions unless the mother’s life is in danger prevented her from undergoing the procedure in a safe and legal setting.
In 1970, McCorvey sued Henry Wade, the district attorney for Dallas County. To safeguard McCorvey’s privacy, the case was brought to the Supreme Court under the Roe v. Wade filing.
Supreme Court Ruling
The Supreme Court issued a landmark 7-2 ruling that the 14th Amendment protects a woman’s freedom to make her own medical decisions, including the option to have an abortion.
Specifically, that the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment offers a basic ‘right to privacy’ that safeguards a woman’s freedom to decide whether or not to have an abortion.
The landmark verdict resulted in the decriminalization of abortion in 46 states, but under terms that each state could determine. States could decide, for instance, whether abortions are permitted exclusively during the first and second trimesters but not the third (typically beyond 28 weeks).
Impact
In 1995, McCorvey became a reborn Christian and began lobbying against abortion. Above seen in 1998, she passed away in 2017
The ruling was hailed as a win by pro-choice activists because it would result in fewer women becoming gravely or fatally ill from abortions performed by unqualified or unlicensed practitioners. In addition, the freedom of choice was viewed as a crucial milestone in the fight for women’s equality in the country. Victims of rape or incest would be permitted to abort their pregnancies without feeling compelled to become mothers.
However, pro-life advocates argued that abortion is equivalent to murder and that every life, regardless of how it was conceived, is important. Anti-abortion activists have already prompted hundreds of state laws to restrict the scope of Roe v. Wade, a decision that has never been overturned.
In 2003, President George W. Bush signed the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, which prohibited a practice used to perform second-trimester abortions.
The author Norma McCorvey (Jane Roe)
McCorvey maintained a quiet life after the verdict until the 1980s, when she exposed herself to be Jane Roe.
McCorvey became a prominent, outspoken pro-abortion figure in American discourse, even working at a women’s clinic that performed abortions.
However, in 1995 she pulled an unexpected U-turn, becoming a born-again Christian and embarking on a nationwide speaking tour against the operation.
In 2003, she filed a motion with the U.S. district court in Dallas to overturn her original 1973 judgement.
In 2005, the Supreme Court ruled against the petition after it had passed through the lower courts.
McCorvey passed away in a Texas assisted living facility in February 2017, at the age of 69.
Shelley Lynn (Baby Roe)
Shelley Lynn Thornton was born to Norma McCorvey (Jane Roe) in Dallas in 1969, a year before the Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade was filed.
Shelley was the third child born to the single mother. She placed her for adoption the day after giving birth, then continued to advocate for the right to an abortion.
The identity of Shelley became known last year. She waived her right to confidentiality by discussing the landmark case in many interviews.
She claims that Norma exploited her for notoriety, reaching out to her only when she was a teenager and for the wrong motives.
‘Very quickly, I realized that the only reason she wanted to contact me and locate me was to utilize me for publicity. She didn’t deserve to meet me. She never did anything throughout her lifetime to regain that privilege.
Shelley Lynn Thornton, a 51-year-old mother of three, has addressed the camera for the first time. Her biological mother, Norma McCorvey, was Jane Roe, whose famous case Roe vs. Wade granted American women the right to abortion.
Shelley stated last year, “She never demonstrated true compassion for me or genuine remorse for doing the things that she did and for speaking the things that she did.”
Shelley has reluctant to state her position on abortion for fear of being weaponized by either side of the argument.
‘Many individuals were unaware of my existence. It does not revolve around me, as I did not design this regulation. This movement was not founded by me. I was not involved in any way. I was a tiny, insignificant being, and, you know, circumstances prevailed.
My entire thought process is, ‘Oh God, everyone is going to hate me because everyone is going to blame me for the legalization of abortion.’
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