CNN may portray itself as a network that believes in science, but senior legal analyst Laura Coates destroyed that façade on Monday’s Don Lemon Tonight as she reacted to the leaked draft opinion that suggested the Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade by alleging that women won’t be equal to men in post-Roe America and offering the fact that Justice Alito never mentioned vasectomies as proof.
After being asked by Lemon for her thoughts, Coates declared that the draft opinion “seems to be in line with how women are losing their rights in this country. This opinion can be, if true, narrowed down and defined quite simply. Women are not viewed as equal to men.”
Coates also lamented that abortion is not treated the same way as simply traveling between states or getting married, “Well, in this instance, the Court already said that there are some areas, if you believe fundamental rights include things like marriage, include things like interstate travel and include things like contraception and the like, well then, surely, you would believe that within that same umbrella of thought that things related to one's health and agency over one's body should also be in that privacy sphere.”
Returning to her earlier theme of women allegedly becoming second class citizens, Coates decried that:
Instead, you have this justice, if this draft opinion is to be believed and to be actually followed to a conclusion of an official holding then you have the codification that says that when it comes to a woman's body, when it comes to agency over ourselves over our decisions and over our bodies, we are simply not equal to men. I don't see a single thing in the draft opinion that I saw from Politico or otherwise that mention things like vasectomies, that mentions things like a man's inability to choose when and whether to have and give birth to a child although of course, they cannot give birth to a child but I guess that's the point.
In another context, Coates would be accused of transphobia, but in this context she just showed she does not follow the science. A vasectomy is more analogous to a hysterectomy because neither takes the life of an innocent baby like abortion does.
Coates then took to lamenting federalism, “that we do not want to give individual states the autonomy to decide because then we would not be the United States of America. We would be separate countries unto themselves and people in one state would not have the same rights as a person in another state. That is simply not how this nation is supposed to operate.”
Concluding her rant, Coates showed no concern that somebody leaked the draft, presumably for the purposes of pressuring the justices, “But if I can just say, on the backdrop of thinking about all these aspects, it's quite telling that in the United States of America people are in far more shock about the leak of a Supreme Court opinion more so than they are about the fundamental rights of women evaporating with the stroke of a pen.”
This segment was sponsored by Fidelity.
Here is a transcript for the May 2 show:
CNN Don Lemon Tonight
5/2/2022
10:08 PM ET
DON LEMON: Laura Coates, I want to bring you in, what is your response to this? What's your reaction?
LAURA COATES: Well, forgive me. I seem to be losing my voice so you'll hear me a little bit differently. But it seems to be in line with how women are losing their rights in this country. This opinion can be, if true, narrowed down and defined quite simply. Women are not viewed as equal to men.
The right of privacy, a fancy way of talking about a fundamental right, meaning in a country where we talk about how we do not want people's rights to infringe on another's and your rights end where mine begin and it's about the consent of the governed.
Well, in this instance, the Court already said that there are some areas, if you believe fundamental rights include things like marriage, include things like interstate travel and include things like contraception and the like, well then, surely, you would believe that within that same umbrella of thought that things related to one's health and agency over one's body should also be in that privacy sphere.
But instead, you have this justice, if this draft opinion is to be believed and to be actually followed to a conclusion of an official holding then you have the codification that says that when it comes to a woman's body, when it comes to agency over ourselves over our decisions and over our bodies, we are simply not equal to men.
I don't see a single thing in the draft opinion that I saw from Politico or otherwise that mention things like vasectomies, that mentions things like a man's inability to choose when and whether to have and give birth to a child although of course, they cannot give birth to a child but I guess that's the point.
And so, when you look at this, think about all the other aspects of our society to which we rely and we have said that we do not want to give individual states the autonomy to decide because then we would not be the United States of America. We would be separate countries unto themselves and people in one state would not have the same rights as a person in another state.That is simply not how this nation is supposed to operate. Yes, there are distinctions about certain laws but about the fundamental aspects of what is the agency and autonomy over a privacy decision that is for 50 years, which means my mother, my grandmother, my great-grandmother is still alive at that point in time, that for that span of generations that a right that was fundamental because a justice says, you know what? It's time for the states to decide, I don't know what country that would actually reflect.
But if I can just say, on the backdrop of thinking about all these aspects, it's quite telling that in the United States of America people are in far more shock about the leak of a Supreme Court opinion more so than they are about the fundamental rights of women evaporating with the stroke of a pen.
