[C0LLETTE]

Saint Amy Of The Blessed Senate

You might think, watching the confirmation hearings for Justice Amy Coney Barrett, that she was auditioning for a role on Modern Family and not on the U.S. Supreme Court. Six of her seven children sat behind her in a freakishly fidgetless row. They were, in the words of Inside Edition, “impeccably behaved.”

The Democratic questioners on the committee wanted to know Justice Barrett’s stand on abortion rights, climate change and the limits of presidential power. The Republicans, in contrast, had a little mom pedestal ready (Justice Barrett, a practising Catholic, would be familiar with this pedestal, which is usually occupied by a certain mother in blue). One senator wanted to know who did the laundry in her house. Another called her “a legal titan who drives a minivan.” Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney tweeted a picture of the Barrett brood piling into that minivan with the hashtag #momsrule.
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Feminism freed women to make choices about motherhood their mothers and grandmothers didn’t have (and also to exercise their rights to reproductive freedom, which Justice Barrett will hopefully honour, even though the prospects don’t look good). You can choose to have a fur baby, or an actual human baby, or no baby at all. None of those decisions make you a saint or a demon, just a person like everyone else.

Elizabeth Renzetti
Globe and Mail
October 16