Yesterday, Lindsey Graham demanded to know whether Sonia Sotomayor believed that denying taxpayer funds for abortions for poor women was akin to slavery, as the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund had supposedly argued in a brief. Sotomayor, who was a board member, not a litigator for PRLDEF and therefore didn't write briefs, responded that "perhaps it would be helpful if I explained the role of a board member".
Well, apparently Graham didn't exactly have his facts straight. Here is what the brief said, according to a fact-check from the AP:
"Just as Dred Scott v. Sanford refused citizenship to black people, these opinions strip the poor of meaningful citizenship under fundamental law," the documents say.
In the 1857 Dred Scott decision, the Supreme Court ruled that slaves were not citizens (a court full of wise black judges would have come to the same conclusion, amirite?). The brief wasn't comparing denying people abortion to slavery. It was arguing that denying taxpayer funds to poor women seeking abortion discriminated against the poor, thus treating them as if they were not full citizens. Not the same thing.
-- A. Serwer
