“Everybody want to know what I would do if I didn’t win,” said Kanye West, the only 2020 presidential candidate to truly grapple with the horrors of abortion, as he accepted his award for Best Rap Album at the Grammys in 2005.
He paused. The room was silent. Then Ye dropped the bomb: “I guess we’ll never know.”
The crowd erupted in applause.
That’s the energy I felt Monday night at the Supreme Court as the world learned a majority of justices was prepared to strike down Roe v. Wade. You’ll find no nuance here. The pro-choicers lost, and I’m going to inject 500ccs of their tears straight into my veins.
Cope and seethe.
At around 9:30 on Monday, I was already in my pajamas, settling in for a quiet night with my wife. Then she showed me her phone. Politico had the scoop. The Supreme Court had voted to overturn Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the twin pillars upon which abortion has been undemocratically legalized in America for the last 50 years.
Now it’s 1 a.m. and I’m sitting at my desk, still jazzed from the cigarette I bummed from pro-life legend Randall Terry, who in 1994 was sentenced to five months in prison after arranging for Bill Clinton to be ambushed by a man carrying a fetus in a jar.
“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” wrote Justice Samuel Alito, who authored the opinion. Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, The Glorious ACB (thank you, President Trump!), and Thomas joined him. It appears John Roberts has gone squish as usual. Who cares?
Republican strategist Matt Wolking made a strong case that the leaker was Amit Jain, who clerks for Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Whoever leaked the draft decision, I imagine he or she did so as a last-ditch effort to pressure one of the justices into abandoning the opinion, though Wall Street Journal editor James Taranto suggests the attempt could backfire. Justices can’t afford to be seen caving to public pressure. Roberts might even switch sides to help preserve the court’s perceived legitimacy, which he seems to value above basic logical coherence and the lives of millions of the unborn.
I ripped a shot of tequila in my living room and hopped in an Uber with my wife. We had to be there. Something to tell the grandkids (who will now be in far less danger in utero).
I exited the Uber in front of the Supreme Court to find the mood somber. “Woo! It’s a party!” I yelled, hoping some like-minded people would respond. No such luck. Wall-to-wall pro-aborts. Of course it was. Forget it, Jake, it’s D.C. Still, it was a bit of a downer. I felt like I was in Times Square on V-J Day, but everybody there was pissed that we’d won World War Two.
I dipped my wife for a long kiss anyway. Then I wandered into the crowd, heckling as I went. They called me ugly, gay (not very progressive), retarded (kinda ableist), and an incel (despite the wedding ring), but nothing could kill my vibe.
Then the Winged Hussars arrived. Randall Terry, strumming a ukulele, came up the street with a cadre of around 10 young pro-lifers affiliated with the Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising (I’ve done pro-life sidewalk counseling alongside PAAU members).
Lauren Handy, who made headlines last month for obtaining 115 aborted fetuses from a D.C. abortion clinic and arranging a funeral mass and burial for 110 of them, was wearing some sort of iridescent, wing-like cape. PAAU executive director Terrisa Bukovinac beat out a rhythm on a plastic bucket strapped to her chest as they chanted, “We’re gonna dance! On the grave! Of Roe! Versus Wade!”
I joined in their chants. When a few of the pro-life protesters shouldered their way into the middle of the hostile crowd with a bullhorn, I accompanied them. I’ve never been much of a chanter, but I saw it work tonight. There were only four of us. We were surrounded and outnumbered maybe 50-to-one by abortion enthusiasts who kicked, screamed, chanted, and tried to grab the bullhorn. But we shouted ourselves hoarse, and in the end, our bit of leaven leaveneth’d the whole lump. The pro-aborts moved away, leaving PAAU front and center in all the major news camera shots on one side of the court. Two percent of the crowd, 50 percent of the PR.
God, it felt good. In the past, I’ve finished my mornings of pro-life work feeling depressed. I felt like I was living in ancient Carthage or 14th-century Tenochtitlan. Every achievement of our culture felt tainted. I finally understood how the 1619 people feel. Not tonight. Tonight, I knew we’d won. The stain had been removed from our nation.
Terry rallied the troops for a quick meeting. I tagged along. “It’s D-Day,” he said. “We just took Normandy Beach. The Germans still control France.” The fight won’t be over until there’s a federal ban on abortion, he continued, drawing an amusing analogy to polygamy: “That’s how they beat the Mormons.”
That’s true. It’s also true that the pro-life movement needs to redouble its efforts to make sure that no woman ever feels like abortion is her only option.
But this is not the night for nuance. Abortion will soon be banned or severely restricted in about half of U.S. states. Thousands of babies, of whose laughter, friendship, wit, wisdom, and ingenuity this world might otherwise have been robbed, will live. This is a night for celebration.
