White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki was forced to explain to a Fox reporter that the Biden administration is more concerned with people losing the right to control their own bodies than they are with punishing the person who leaked the draft Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
Earlier this week, a draft decision written by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito was leaked that showed that the Court has voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, effectively ending the right to get an abortion in the U.S. The decision suggested that the same reasoning could be applied to the historic LGBTQ rights victories Lawrence v. Texas (which ended sodomy laws) and Obergefell v. Hodges (which guarantees the right to marriage equality in all states).
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While supporters of reproductive health care and women’s rights have been protesting and angry about the decision to curtail people’s bodily autonomy, rightwing media like Fox News has been more concerned about punishing whoever leaked the draft. Instead of focusing on the people who will be forced to seek un-safe abortions or carry fetuses to term even if it puts their lives at risk, conservative media thinks the main story is about document security in D.C.
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To that end, Fox News’s Peter Doocy asked Psaki several questions about the leak, starting with: “Why did you guys say anything about the leaked draft memo at the Supreme Court?”
“How do you mean?” Psaki replied.
“Well, in the past, you have declined to comment on leaked materials. So why now?” Doocy asked.
Psaki said that the draft was confirmed to be accurate and that President Joe Biden’s response to the leaked draft noted that “we don’t know if this is accurate” (Biden’s statement was released before the draft was verified).
“Does the president think the leaker should be punished?” Doocy asked.
Psaki refused to answer – she usually refuses to answer when asked if any particular individual should face prosecution since it would be inappropriate for the White House to interfere in prosecutorial decisions – and then told Doocy that she’s not going to be “distracted” by a discussion of document security.
“What our focus is on is not getting our — distracted — or our eye off the ball of what is most important to people across the country here, which is not the leak and the story of the leak,” she said. “It is the fact that women’s healthcare is at risk for millions of people across this country.”
After multiple leak questions from Doocy, Psaki explains they are focused on women’s healthcare being at risk and not the leak pic.twitter.com/3A3SlGn48o
— Acyn (@Acyn) May 4, 2022
