Dozens of publishing professionals have signed on to an open letter condemning the acquisition of Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett‘s upcoming memoir, worth $2 million, by Penguin Random House following her vote to overturn Roe v. Wade.
In the summer high court decision for Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Barrett and five other Republican-appointed justices voted to overturn 49 years of abortion by allowing states to impose laws severely limiting or restricting abortion access. The U.S. literary professionals argued, “We recognize that harm is done to a democracy not only in the form of censorship, but also in the form of assault on inalienable human rights.”
“Many of us work daily with books we find disagreeable to our personal politics. Rather, this is a case where a corporation has privately funded the destruction of human rights with obscene profits,” reads the letter, signed by over 250 figures from the literary world.
BARRETT SIDES WITH LIBERAL JUSTICES IN OPPOSITION TO HALTED ALABAMA EXECUTION
Barrett, a Catholic conservative nominated by former President Donald Trump to succeed the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 2020, is accused by the group of “dismantling protections for the human rights to privacy, self-determination, and bodily autonomy along with the federal right to an abortion in the United States,” along with conservative Justices Samuel Alito, John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch.
The book deal with PRH was announced just one year after Trump nominated her to the high court and will reportedly consider “how judges are not supposed to bring their personal feelings into how they rule.”
Barrett is also a member of the People of Praise, a majority Catholic Christian fellowship group based in South Bend, Indiana, which has been disparaged for its traditionalist leanings on sexual ethics and familial norms.
The letter accuses Barrett of “inflicting her own religious and moral agenda upon all Americans while appropriating the rhetoric of even-handedness — and Penguin Random House has agreed to pay her a sum of $2 million to do it.”
Lucrative book deals and other outside earnings are not uncommon for high court justices, though they have often been a subject of scrutiny no matter who is making earnings outside the Supreme Court’s payroll.
Carrie Severino, president of the conservative Judicial Crisis Network, told the Washington Examiner that the letter was an attempt to “punish” the justice for voting on a decision they disagreed with.
“Liberals are determined to personally punish the justices who voted to overturn Roe — whether it’s by intimidating them and their families by protesting at their homes, chasing them out restaurants, or trying to get their books canceled,” Severino said.
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In 2013, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a Democratic appointee, collected more than $1.9 million in advances and promotion for her memoir, My Beloved World, according to the Center for Public Integrity.
Barrett received a $425,000 advance from the literary agent Javelin Group last year over a separate book negotiation, while Gorsuch received $250,000 from the publishing company HarperCollins for his 2019 book, A Republic, If You Can Keep It, according to their respective disclosure filings.
