Justice Sotomayor ‘paraded her scientific ignorance’ in questioning during oral arguments on Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health By Thomas Lifson
Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, raised eyebrows and cast doubt on her fitness for her elevated office during oral arguments over the pending Mississippi abortion case, Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health.
Constitutional scholars were taken aback by her injection of politics:
“Will this institution survive the stench that this creates in the public perception – that the Constitution and its reading are just political acts?” Sotomayor asked. “I don’t see how it is possible.”
And her casual rejection of the Constitution as the arbiter of Supreme Court decision-making:
Justice Sonia Sotomayor even said at one point that the Supreme Court comes up with decisions all the time that aren’t directly grounded in the Constitution. This is a line of argument that, if taken seriously, would justify the Supreme Court swinging free of all restraint and rewriting the nation’s laws on the fly.
Writing in Newsweek, Dr. Grazie Poso Christie, exposes her ignorant declarations:
…right after Mississippi’s solicitor general Scott Stewart argued it was no longer appropriate to use fetal viability (the gestational age at which a prematurely-born infant can survive in an intensive care unit) as the point after which states can protect an unborn child from elective abortion. He said this was due—in part—to 30 years of medical advances. In a piqued, incredulous tone, Sotomayor demanded to know just “What are the advancements in medicine?” As Stewart began to list them, mentioning new knowledge of fetal pain, the Justice abruptly cut him off.
Our brief and others document the medical and scientific advances Mr. Stewart was referring to, in language easily accessible to lay people and rigorously sourced in the latest scientific journals and currently accepted medical practices. It’s there for anyone with eyes—or the will—to see.
Sotomayor vigorously rejected Stewart’s reference to advances in our understanding of fetal pain. She claimed that only an eccentric “small fringe” believes fetal pain exists “before 24, 25 weeks.” She could not have been more wrong. A growing body of scientific evidence indicates that a fully developed cortex is not necessary for the transmission of pain sensations, which may be present as early as 12 weeks.
In fact, physicians routinely protect their youngest patients—fetal and premature—from pain. A baby born at 21 or 22 weeks receives anesthesia routinely during any intervention. Anything less would be considered barbaric. (snip)
Justice Sotomayor paraded her scientific ignorance even further, callously comparing a fetus recoiling from pain to the muscle reflex of a brain-dead patient. “There’s about 40 percent of dead people who, if you touch their feet, the foot will recoil,” she said. In fact, brain-dead people do not “recoil” from painful stimuli as living people do. One of the ways we diagnose brain death is by documenting the loss of response to pain. You could amputate a brain-dead person’s limb with no response at all. Some extremely specific spinal reflexes persist in brain death while the patient remains on cardiac and respiratory support. But there is simply no “recoil” to touch in brain death.
Dr. Christie co-authored a brief informing the Court of these scientific facts. That’s why he began his essay with this important question bearing in fitness for office:
Does Justice Sonia Sotomayor even read the briefs in cases before the Supreme Court?
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