Politico Botches a Hit

Heidi Przybyla has a long piece in Politico claiming that many of the conservative amicus briefs in Supreme Court cases are “connected” to Leonard Leo and that these briefs have distorted the Court’s understanding of history. But what she uncovers is banal and what she alleges is false.

Start with her lead example. Przybyla mentions a brief in the Dobbs case by Princeton University professor of jurisprudence Robert P. George — co-authored by eminent legal philosopher John Finnis, who is bafflingly unmentioned. Justice Harry Blackmun’s opinion in Roe v. Wade had said that it was “doubtful” that the common law ever treated abortion as a crime even late in pregnancy. Finnis and George document at length that Blackmun got the history badly wrong, having been misled by the legal academic and abortion activist Cyril Means Jr. They cite, among others, Henry de Bracton to establish that abortion had been understood to be a crime back to the 13th century. Other briefs “echoed” the Finnis-George argument, Przybyla writes, and Justice Samuel Alito quoted the same passage from Bracton.

About the Author

Ramesh Ponnuru

Ramesh Ponnuru is the editor of National Review, a columnist for the Washington Post, and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

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Heidi Przybyla has a long piece in Politico claiming that many of the conservative amicus briefs in Supreme Court cases are “connected” to Leonard Leo and that these briefs have distorted the Court’s understanding of history. But what she uncovers is banal and what she alleges is false.

Start with her lead example. Przybyla mentions a brief in the Dobbs case by Princeton University professor of jurisprudence Robert P. George — co-authored by eminent legal philosopher John Finnis, who is bafflingly unmentioned. Justice Harry Blackmun’s opinion in Roe v. Wade had said that it was “doubtful” that the common law ever treated abortion as a crime even late in pregnancy. Finnis and George document at length that Blackmun got the history badly wrong, having been misled by the legal academic and abortion activist Cyril Means Jr. They cite, among others, Henry de Bracton to establish that abortion had been understood to be a crime back to the 13th century. Other briefs “echoed” the Finnis-George argument, Przybyla writes, and Justice Samuel Alito quoted the same passage from Bracton.