There’s a remarkable op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today by a lawyer who was fired for defending Dobbs on a post-Roe conference call for women at her firm. What’s remarkable is she is describing actual adults in America:
Everyone else who spoke on the call was unanimous in her anger and outrage about Dobbs. I spoke up to offer a different view. I noted that many jurists and commentators believed Roe had been wrongly decided. I said that the court was right to remand the issue to the states. I added that I thought abortion-rights advocates had brought much of the pushback against Roe on themselves by pushing for extreme policies. I referred to numerous reports of disproportionately high rates of abortion in the black community, which some have called a form of genocide. I said I thought this was tragic.
The outrage was immediate. The next speaker called me a racist and demanded that I leave the meeting. Other participants said they “lost their ability to breathe” on hearing my comments. After more of the same, I hung up.
Someone made a formal complaint to the firm. Later that day, Hogan Lovells suspended my contracts, cut off my contact with clients, removed me from email and document systems, and emailed all U.S. personnel saying that a forum participant had made “anti-Black comments” and was suspended pending an investigation. The firm also released a statement to the legal website Above the Law bemoaning the devastating impact my views had on participants in the forum — most of whom were lawyers participating in a call convened expressly for the purpose of discussing a controversial legal and political topic. Someone leaked my name to the press.
I was just part of a discussion last week with people who struggle with ever voicing their opinions on such things at work for fear of exactly these kinds of results. I know doctors who felt the pressure not to voice medical opinions during the height of Covid, for fear of losing their jobs. What are the powers that be afraid of? People actually thinking for themselves? May the most rational and humane views win! (And let’s actually follow the science.)
That’s one of the things I always loved about Firing Line. Bill Buckley wasn’t afraid to have people on with whom he completely disagreed, because he had confidence in what he believed.
All too often today there is hubris but not confidence. Perhaps because we really do know too much about reality to have confidence in the leading ideologies of the day.