Letters: Supreme duplicity; Supporting the Puppy Protection Act

Supreme duplicity

In the leaked draft of the future Supreme Court decision regarding the repeal of Roe v. Wade, Justice Alito asserts that Roe was “egregiously wrong” from its beginning. If he knew it was wrong from 1973, he must have known it was wrong at the time of his Senate confirmation hearing in 2006.

Tort law defines “active concealment” as “The non-disclosure by words or actions in a situation where there is a duty on the person to disclose something.” Alito surely “actively concealed” his opinion regarding Roe at his confirmation hearing.

The law further defines “fraudulent concealment” as “Concealment where the person conceals something with the intent to deceive or defraud the other party.” Did Alito intend to deceive the Senate regarding his opinion about Roe?

Had he revealed his view about Roe, it is likely that he would not have been confirmed. Assuming he wished to be confirmed, it follows that his concealment was made with the intent to deceive, constituting a fraud on the Senate and the American people.

Could SCOTUS confirmations obtained as a result of fraudulent concealment be rescinded?

Alito writes that “we cannot allow our decisions to be affected by…the public’s reaction to our work.” Polling shows public support for Roe to be as high as 70%. Democracy is based on majority will of the people. Alito’s statement could translate roughly as “we cannot allow decisions based on our personal emotional comfort and religious convictions to be affected by something like democracy.”

Supporting the Puppy Protection Act

The Humane Society of the United States recently released its 10th annual Horrible Hundred report (humanesociety.org/horrible-hundred), on problem puppy mills, which reveals that many USDA-licensed breeders continue to operate year after year despite serious animal care violations on their records. Some of the breeders in this report were even found to be cruelly killing dogs that they no longer wanted, or performing painful medical procedures on dogs without taking them to a veterinarian – and yet the USDA permitted these puppy mills to remain licensed. This means they can sell as many dogs as they want to pet stores, brokers and online. People who buy puppies from pet stores or online and assume that “USDA licensed” means the dogs were bred in quality conditions are being seriously misled. It’s time for the federal government to step up and better regulate how these facilities treat dogs.

The Puppy Protection Act (H.R. 2840 / S. 1385) would require better housing, veterinary care and temperature control for dogs in USDA-licensed facilities. It will also require breeders to attempt to find placements for retired breeding dogs they no longer want instead of cruelly killing them. For information on how to support the Puppy Protection Act and encourage the USDA to improve dog care rules, visit humanesociety.org/puppyprotection.

An amendment for women’s rights

I’ve submitted to my Senators and Congressman a request that each immediately propose and support the passage and ultimate ratification of an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, with no “loophole” nuance added, specifically stating: “Females are deemed to have all the rights, privileges, privacy and freedoms otherwise afforded by the Constitution of the United States of America.”

Every woman is encouraged to make the same request, as is every man who has a daughter, wife, sister, female friend or mother.

The Constitution does not specifically state that women have equal rights and, as we have recently observed, based on stories in this and other publications, rights not specifically stated appear to be reasonable basis for jurists to deny them to females. When such justification of Supreme Court rulings, involving women, is based on sighting the rulings of Matthew Hale, who deemed women to be property, and who sentenced women, whose attitude he did not like, to death, deeming them witches, it become apparent that the future assault on women’s rights may very likely have no bounds and thus can only be assured by amending the Constitution to specify such rights, privileges, privacy and freedoms to all women.