Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was reportedly forced to leave behind the dessert menu at a chain steakhouse in D.C. because protesters showed up while he was eating dinner.
Kavanaugh, who was confirmed to the Supreme Court in 2018 after being accused of sexual assault, recently voted with the rest of the Supreme Court’s conservative majority to rule that people in the United States do not have the right to have an abortion, overturning 50 years of case law, which he said during his confirmation hearing was “settled as precedent.”
On Wednesday night, protesters caught wind that Kavanaugh was eating dinner at Morton’s Steakhouse in D.C. and showed up outside, demanding that the restaurant kick him out.
Later, protesters tweeted that Kavanaugh had “snuck out the back with his security detail.”
Politico reported Friday that Kavanaugh did not see or hear the protesters but tragically left before he ate dessert, the options for which included crème brûlée, double chocolate mousse, and fresh raspberries. The restaurant, on the other hand, was furious.
“Honorable Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh and all of our other patrons at the restaurant were unduly harassed by unruly protestors while eating dinner at our Morton’s restaurant,” Morton’s told Politico.
“Politics, regardless of your side or views, should not trample the freedom at play of the right to congregate and eat dinner,” Morton’s, which is owned by frequent Republican donor Tilman Fertitta, told Politico. “There is a time and place for everything. Disturbing the dinner of all of our customers was an act of selfishness and void of decency,” Morton’s told Politico.
The Dobbs decision has thrown both abortion care and basic medical rights into chaos in several states since the Supreme Court handed it down two weeks ago.
A 23-year-old woman in Arizona was forced to self-induce an abortion in a hotel room with mifepristone and misoprostol, an FDA-approved abortion medication; a 10-year-old rape victim in Ohio was forced to travel to Indiana for an abortion because her state had a trigger ban even for victims of rape and incest; and some women taking the immunosuppresive drug methotexate for rheumatoid arthritis have reported being denied access to the medication because of legal murkiness, since it can also be used to induce an abortificient (and was specifically named as such a drug in Texas law).
The opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization explicitly said there is no right to an abortion in the Constitution. The jury is apparently still out, however, on whether finishing your burned custard and leaving through the steakhouse front door without being mildly inconvenienced is a right “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition.”
Before the Dobbs decision, 26-year-old Nicholas Roske allegedly flew from California to the D.C. area with a plan to assassinate Kavanaugh and kill himself, citing the leak of the Dobbs decision and the Uvalde school shooting. But after he arrived outside of the Justice’s house with a gun, ammunition, and other supplies, ultimately called 911 and said he needed “psychiatric help,” according to court documents and the released 911 call.
Roske was charged with attempting to kill a U.S. judge and pleaded not guilty last month.
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