Again, I don’t know how any thoughtful, ethical person could question the outcome in this case. Apparently the “intended parents” refused to agree that they would seek appropriate medical care for the child after he was born with a serious but medically correctable heart problem. Having been unsuccessful in their efforts to have the child aborted late term, these ghouls were going to get custody of the child and perhaps have a hospital administer “palliative care”…that is, let the baby die. Pleasantly, of course,
A legal battle, at least regarding the life of the child, was averted when the child was born ahead of the September 3 due date.
As with some of the other cases discussed in Part 1, how could a typical pro-abortion advocate who uses the standard pro-abortion rhetoric about women’s “bodily autonomy” argue that the parents could force the surrogate to undergo an abortion? Yet abortion activists are apparently immune to integrity, logic, and decency. The main thing is to get the unborn child disposed of.
The surrogate’s contract contained a clause obligating her to submit to an abortion if the “intended parents” demanded it. The lawyers who drafted that contract should be sued for legal malpractice, and there are arguable ethical violations as well. I am wondering how common such contracts are, and how often they are enforced. For human beings cannot sell themselves into slavery or otherwise contract away their “unalienable rights.” That contract provision is unenforceable as against public policy, and should be made illegal by statute.
Republicans should pass the bill in the House and make Democrats show their lack decency when they vote it down.
I have two simple questions for pro-abortion (or perhaps “pro mothers and doctors being able to kill viable infants at will” is a more accurate label…a bit long, I admit) advocates.
How can you honestly and sincerely defend the new Massachusetts abortion law? If you can, how do you look yourself in the mirror or sleep at night?
Abortion will now be allowed at any time before birth in Massachusetts after Governor Maura Healey (D, or course: what other party would do this?) eliminated the state’s abortion limits yesterday. Previously, the Bay State had allowed abortion only up until 24 weeks. Now a fully developed unborn infant can be killed any time during the 40-week gestation cycle, even second before birth. That means that the child could be delivered via C-section and instantly be protected by law as a living human being, but an unborn infant at the exact same state of development and fully viable can be murdered in the womb after the mother’s water has broken and contractions have begun.
To be fair, now, the home of my birth and happy childhood isn’t the only barbaric state with such an immoral law. Alaska, Colorado, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont, and the District of Columbia of course, also believe that being able to kill living and viable infants in the womb is a human “right.” Peter Singer, the Princeton ethics professor, once caused an uproar when he said that as long as we were allowing abortions up to birth, why not let the mother see her baby first after it is born and then have the option to kill it? He was right: morally and ethically, either homicide is exactly the same. The distinction between born and unborn at that point is arbitrary and a legal fiction, created to let mothers feel better about a monstrous act.
I love it when, completely by accident, a day’s posts sync up. Today began with two posts about my assertion that until very recently the dominant template for the American Presidency was the “blue-eyed white guy with an American-sounding name,” which had the unintended consequences of making it nearly impossible for anti-Americans like Mayor Mamdani, Rep. Omar, and and Michigan Senatorial hopeful Abdul El-Sayed to gain power. Stating that fact got me accused of racism right here on my own blog.
Next came the tale of how an autobiography about to be published and authored by a disgraced Cambridge professor has already been pretty thoroughly shown to be fantasy, with the Left and the lying, now ex-prof, claiming that he is the victim of racism like every other person “of color” on the planet. This latest post is about a black criminal on “the fringes of hip-hop” standing trial for murder because he self-published a book that said he was involved in one. His defense: he made it all up.
Thus comes the fascinating legal conundrum raised by the prosecution of Duane Davis, who wrote in 2019 that he was part of the plot to murder the rapper Tupac Shakur. The 215 page book, published with a co-author (actually a ghostwriter who authored all of it), was largely ignored until a detective with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department started working on the cold case, discovered “Compton Street Legend,” and used it as his primary evidence to persuade a grand jury to indict Davis on one count of murder in the famous rapper’s killing. Davis, now 63, has pleaded not guilty and denies guilt.
Is it really so hard for officials in the Womens National Basketball Association to come clean and admit “Of course we don’t think males who just decided one day “POOF! We’re females!” should play against women in sports. We were just virtue-signaling to knee-jerk progressives and we don’t want to publicly agree with anything the Trump Administration supports. That would put the WNBA out of business!”?
Apparently. Now the league looks like silly bunch of hypocrites and woke morons, which it is. Permit me to mock and excoriate them.
White, 35, a Republican candidate for US Senate, announced, “I’m transgender! I’m a woman… I identify as sometimes identifying as a woman for purposes of… professional basketball,” to Fox News. “I think I’d be unstoppable,” White continued, tongue sort-of in his metaphorical cheek. “But I’m a team-first guy. I’m a pass-first kind of player. I do the little things. I led my team in all five major stat categories at Iowa State University, so I do a little bit of everything. I’ll do whatever the coach needs me to do. I’ll do whatever the girls need me to do.”
Freedom, in his own “POOF!” moment, had been all technical and stuff, which is no fun. He said he had reviewed the WNBA’s eligibility criteria, and and that he meets all the requirements. Article XIII of the WNBA’s 2026 collective bargaining agreement says, “Only players who are women are eligible to play in the WNBA,” but the 409-page document diesn’t define “women” and has no policy on transgender eligibility, including never stating whether self-identification alone is sufficient sufficient to make everyone call a player “she” or “they” and allow the biological male to change in WNBA locker rooms and smash the girls on the court.
Royce took the pass and scored. The WNBA just has to be honest about the absurdity of biological men playing in women’s sports, Royce said. “I think the WNBA could come out and make a definitive statement about guys with a pair of balls playing in the Women’s Association,” he said. His plan: he is serious about wanting to be drafted and will proceed until the WNBA’s leadership stops trying avoid throbbing reality.
If he isn’t drafted, Royce says, he vows, he’ll sue. “I have to file a discrimination lawsuit, right? I mean, that’s, that’s ridiculous,” he told the Fox New. “We’re gonna have to have a huge legal battle about discrimination if I can’t play.”
Gotcha!
The WNBA only ethical and practical option now is to admit it, but its pusillanimous leadership doesn’t have the integrity, intelligence, courage and respect for the public to do it. Instead, it released a rare example of official “huminahumina.”
“I know many of you have received questions in recent weeks regarding transgender athlete participation in women’s basketball, and I expect this topic will continue to receive significant attention. I wanted to reach out to share how we are approaching these conversations at the league office and to thank those of you who have responded to questions from the media with thoughtfulness and professionalism. [The WNBA will] always approach this topic thoughtfully, respectfully, and in alignment with the longstanding values of our league. Second, our player eligibility rules, unlike the eligibility rules of some other leagues and governing bodies, are collectively bargained. Lastly, preserving the integrity of our game and ensuring fair competition will always remain among the league’s highest priorities. We recognize that this is a complex and nuanced topic, and we will continue to have important conversations with all of you and the Players Association in the weeks and months aheadWe also plan to convene additional discussions and offer listening sessions for any team leaders who would like to participate. Your perspectives and feedback are invaluable, and I appreciate those who have already reached out to share their thoughts.”
Ramalama ding-dong! The statement means absolutely nothing. Ralph Kramden’s famous “huminahumina” is actually more articulate. It isn’t a complex or nuanced topic at all, and Engelbert’s league epitomizes why, as Royce and Freedom make crystal clear. If males can be female just by deciding that they are, the WNBA is toast. If men can’t do it, boys can’t do it. She is defaulting to the infamous but ancient tactic of avoiding an inevitable conclusion with unpleasant ramifications (like admitting that people she hates are right, and obviously so) by calling for “discussions” when there isn’t anything to discuss other than “How the hell do we get out of this?”
Players who have responded to questions from the media with thoughtfulness and professionalism number exactly two: Caitlin Clarke, who said she didn’t want to talk about it, and the now iconic Sophie Cunningham, who has repeated her opposition to biological males playing against women in all sports because it is unfair, dangerous and stupid. The rest, if they said anything at all, echoed Indiana Fever coach Stephanie White, who blathered that she didn’t have the scientific background to have an opinion on the issue. Minnesota Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve said earlier this month, fatuously,”We need to protect trans kids. To me, it’s a human rights issue. Every kid has a right to sports.”
Are you willing to let biological men squash your female players flat to “protect trans kids,” you idiot? Are you willing to wipe out women’s basketball and sacrifice girls to protect them? Do you think before you speak?
The WNBA players union also resorted to self-contradictory gibberish:
“We embrace justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion .Those are the values that unite this Union and allow it to protect women’s sports while creating transformational change. Hate, abuse, and demonization of any person or group of people, including transgender people, only fuel fear, division, and harm. We will continue to have hard conversations. But we will not be used as political pawns.”
Translation: “We embrace slogans that keep us aligned with the radical progressive bubble, but have no interest in living up to them when they are adverse to our own self-interest. We know we can’t simultaneously protect women’s sports and allow trans-women top dominate them, but we’re hoping the public is so stupid that they won’t see the obvious hypocrisy in our rhetoric. As with the rest of the ideological Left, we’re going to attack the messengers who carry the facts that reveal our absence of integrity, and hope it works for as long as possible. We trying the “pawns” analogy because it distracts from reality, which is that we leaped into this hopeless cause to signal our virtue, and made the WNBA combatants on the losing side of one of the Left’s dumbest obsessions.”
Popcorn popped, as the saying goeth. I can’t wait to see how the WNBA tries to extricate itself from its self-made mess.
This is the level of intellect at which foes of enforcing immigration laws are functioning. The director of the Smithsonian American History Museum gives land acknowledgements, meaning that she must think that map is profound.
Segers had taken to social media to posted his views on transgender athletes playing in women’s sports. “I don’t see transgender people becoming oppressed or being oppressed … life is unfair” he posted, along with, “I’m not against anyone living out their lives the way they want, but I am against their rights superseding the rights of other people. That’s a little bit foul.” He also mocked the posting of preferred pronouns: “If you asked me what my preferred pronouns are and it’s not obvious to you that I’m a he/him, that I’m good with he/him — Surely you don’t need any help. I’m not wearing a dress.”
The social media Furies descended on the actor with a vengeance, accusing him of being transphobic, homophobic, yada yada. You know the script.
Prof. Turley believes that the performer’s human rights have been unfairly and hypocritically “curtailed,” writing in part,
“Other actors have expressed support for transgender players without any response other than praise in the latest example of the rising McCarthyism on the left.This is only the latest termination over the political views of artists in New York. As the song states in Hadestown, “It’s an old song. It’s a sad song. But we’re gonna sing it anyway.” We have previously discussed how private companies can fire employees for public conduct or statements that bring controversy to their business or products. However, even though the First Amendment does not govern such controversies, there remains a free speech issue. Free speech goes beyond the confines of the First Amendment and private companies can engage in censorship that curtails this human right. The question often comes down to consistency in companies enforcing content-based standards. I did not like some of the comments of Segers, but there is little question that equally strong comments against “cisgender” athletes or for transgender athletes would not result in such termination…Whether it is actors, athletes, or academics, there is a demonstrably different level of tolerance for controversial views on gender. Take Segers’ statements, swap the nouns or pronouns, and ask yourself if there would have been a cancel campaign, let alone a termination. It is not the fact of the controversy but the lack of consistency that is so problematic in these areas.”
Yes, but. This is Broadway, and a Broadway musical. Broadway’s audience pool is shrinking and its ticket prices exclude all but the relatively wealthy. Musicals are especially dependent on the the affluent LGTBQ demographic: I would wager that the percentage of gay Americans who have heard of “Hadestown” is double or more the percentage of non-LGTBQ members of the public. Having a prominent cast member in a Broadway musical making public comments that are likely to offend its core audience is unacceptable, and the producers were only protecting their show, their investment, and the rest of the company by sending Segers packing.
I remember sports columnist Steve Buckley, now with the Athletic (the Times’ captive sports publication) from my halcyon days in Boston. Now he’s issuing badly-reasoned, ethically blind sports commentary from a national platform. Yecchh.
As a special annoyance, his poorly-reasoned observations on sports figures weighing in on national controversies are under a misleading headline: “Aaron Rodgers, Sophie Cunningham speak out. Caitlin Clark doesn’t. Either way, they lose.” I assumed from those words that Steve was going to echo my long-time position regarding narrow-range celebrities in general: “Shut up and sing/dance/act/ dribble/run/kick/pitch.”
But no.
“…Sports people (and this includes sports media people) who weigh in on political and social issues can count on being inundated with anonymous directives that they should “stick to sports.” It’s a mystery who these people are who feel empowered to tell others to stick to sports. The mere utterance suggests somebody with a doctorate in government affairs, or who perhaps has served in Congress or the diplomatic corps. The hypocrisy is at once comical and frightening. We like it when our athletes offer their opinions on this or that issue, except when we disagree with those opinions. (Stick to sports!) And athletes who choose not to play this silly parlor game are dismissed as cowards. At the risk of boring you with seventh-grade civics, but to use a kitschy sports term to make the point, this would be a good time to have a Turn Back the Clock event that teaches and celebrates the protections of the First Amendment. And if you happen to be a member of a championship team who’s been invited to the White House, go ahead and go. Or don’t go. Do that First Amendment thing and tell everyone else to screw off. For sports people who want to take a stand on this or that issue and who are prepared to deal with the avalanche of positive and negative commentary that ensues, go right ahead. For athletes who choose to say nothing, allow them that right. Why does everything have to be so complicated?”
Because things are complicated, Steve—now I remember why I skipped your work at the Boston Herald—and because they are complicated, most sports celebrities have nothing of value to contribute in understanding them. Celebrities do, however, have outsized metaphorical megaphones that give their usually simple-minded opinions far more influence on the public than is healthy for democracy and the quality of civic discourse. I know why Buckley has his own simple-minded view of this issue: sportswriters are, with few exceptions (not him, obviously), also unqualified by intellect, education, experience and skill, to comment publicly on political and social policy matters. Like all journalists, they think they are smarter than they are. This column is a useful piece of evidence to the contrary.
The inspiration for Buckley’s piece was Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers criticizing Dr. Anthony Fauci after the Ethics Villain repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment during a Senate hearing last week, plus Sophie Cunningham‘s public statements regarding trans-females competing in women’s sports, along with fellow WNBA star and team mate Caitlin Clark’s refusal to get drawn into the controversy. Right off the bat (that’s a sports metaphor), Steve trips on his sneaker laces by mixing apples and oranges (a fruit analogy).
This kind of confirmation bias-driven sliming of law enforcement has become the norm since the Obama Administration and its leader’s unforgivable sanctification of Trayvon Martin as his crypto-offspring because Martin was black and got himself shot. The news media loves it, however, and you know, Freedom of the Press.
Bryan Axel Ramirez Gomez (above) died in February after starting a shootout with police in Elkhart, Indiana. His last stand lasted only a few second, because two police officers who were crack shots put him down quickly and safely despite others being close to the exchange. Yet that rather straightforward cause-and-effect result generated this headline from WNDU-TV, the NBC-owned affiliate in South Bend, about 20 miles from Elkhart, two days after the shooting:
The deliberately anti-law enforcement and pro-deadly punk story continued,
“The family of a 17-year-old killed by Elkhart police is calling for state investigators to take over the case as the community grapples with three separate shootings and a stabbing in a 48-hour span. Bryan Axel Ramirez Gomez died Sunday around 2 a.m. in an officer-involved shooting. A memorial now sits at High Dive Park where he was killed. Alfredo Ramirez-Gomez, the teen’s brother, spoke at a vigil for Bryan on Tuesday afternoon and demanded the release of police footage: “Bryan was a bright kid, he was a member of this community, this is where he grew up,” Ramirez-Gomez said. “As for his cause of death, we can’t really point fingers yet. We just ask and demand that the footage comes out from the car and from the vest.”
Right. “We can’t point fingers yet” but Ben Crump is on our auto-dial. The response is reflex: the family is angling for a big settlement from the city. Blogger Robert Stacy McCain points out:
The latest revolting development is that a Minnesota jury convicted Shiloh Hendrix of a single charge of misdemeanor disorderly conduct last week for repeatedly calling a black man who confronted and filmed her at a Rochester playground “nigger.” Hendrix also directed the slur at an 8-year-old black boy who had been going through her purse.
Because Hendrix’s speech was the conduct underlying the disorderly conduct charge according toMinnesota law, we have a controversy over whether using “nigger” as this awful woman did falls within the narrow “fighting words” exception to speech protected under the First Amendment.
The six-person jury returned its verdict after four days of testimony in Olmsted County District Court, finding Hendrix, 37, guilty on the count involving using “nigger” in her exchanges with videographer Sharmake Omar. She was not found guilty on the count involving the child. The full sentence: a stayed 90-day jail sentence, supervised probation, 200 hours of community service and a $1,000 fine.
We are told Hendrix did not speak before sentencing. Good.
Several Ethics Alarms reader alerted me to this gobsmacking story, further evidence that the political left in this country is in the process of suffering a nervous breakdown. I am still not certain I am glad they did.
The court alluded to in the title is the Hawaii Supreme Court. That state needs to be given a bit of leeway for its excesses and delusions: Hawaii, even after more than half a century as our 50th state, is still a very different culture from the other 49. That’s part of its charm when you visit there, but it also has allowed a problematic mindset to linger. Hawaiians just don’t think the usual rules should apply to them, even in relation to the Constitution. Two years ago, in State v. Wilson, the Hawaii Supreme Court wrote that “[t]he spirit of Aloha clashes with a federally-mandated lifestyle that lets citizens walk around with deadly weapons,” and that Hawaii would read the Second Amendment “differently than the current United States Supreme Court.”
Oh. Except that a state can’t do that.
More recently, the same justice who wrote that defiant legal nonsense authored a full-on attack on the U.S. Supreme Court, tacked onto a rather mundane case about prosecutorial misconduct. I will re-publish the whole amazing section below, but KABOOM! It is head-exploding. The diatribe, because that’s what it is, covers voting rights, campaign finance, abortion, religious liberty, the Second Amendment, the major questions doctrine, Chevron deference, the spending power, the removal power, and birthright citizenship, while accusing the Roberts Court of being racist.
Such tangential rhetoric is known as dicta, parts of a legal opinion that carry no substantive legal weight at all since it is pure opinion without definitive case authority. Even dicta, however, is subject to certain professional and ethical constraints. The Hawaiian Supreme Court rantis a bright line breach of several tenets in state’s Code of Judicial Conduct.
Canon I states, “A JUDGE SHALL UPHOLD AND PROMOTE THE INDEPENDENCE, INTEGRITY, AND IMPARTIALITY OF THE JUDICIARY AND SHALL AVOID IMPROPRIETY AND THE APPEARANCE OF IMPROPRIETY.“
Under that banner are three mandates: Rule 1.1. Compliance with the Law, Rule 1.2. Promoting Confidence in the Judiciary, and Rule 1.3. Avoiding Misuse of the Prestige of Judicial Office. A statement that announces that a judge does not feel bound by U.S. Supreme Court decisions violates Rule 1.1. A judge attacking the integrity and motives of the U.S. Supreme Court undermines confidence in the judiciary, as prohibited by Rule 1.2. A judge using the prestige of his office to impugn a higher court is by definition an abuse of office, breaching Rule 1.3.
But wait! There’s more!
Canon 2 states, “A JUDGE SHALL PERFORM THE DUTIES OF JUDICIAL OFFICE IMPARTIALLY, COMPETENTLY, AND DILIGENTLY.”
The anti-SCOTUS section shows a judge giving priority to his partisan and political beliefs over his duties as a judge, violating Rule 2.1. His unhinged attack on past SCOTUS jurisprudence indicates that he is incapable of “upholding the law,” and that he is also incapable of “impartial” conduct. Moreover, the opinion constitutes a flagrant bias based on political affiliation, breaching Rule 2.3.
The outburst is even worse than the many rules violations suggest. The logic is tortured, the law is bad, and the arguments are hysterical as well as not based in reality; worst of all, the Hawaiian judges appear not to understand how SCOTUS fits into the Constitutional governance formula. The core goal underlying the tantrum is an arrogant belief in judicial activism and judges usurping legislatures, as the Warren court did habitually.
As a final rotten cherry on this putrid sundae of unethical judicial conduct, The National Review noticed that a bot probably wrote the text. Nice. My position is that judges using AI to write their opinions is impeachable conduct, but then so is issuing such an attack on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Here is the section, and I must add, having just read it through again, the naked Trump Derangement and partisan extremism is shocking. This isn’t just unethical. It is judicial insurrection. Luckily, progressives don’t read court opinions…
Ethics Alarms 