Saturday Night Live‘s inevitable cold open response to the Supreme Court’s seemingly looming decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark court precedent that guarantees a right to abortion, is about as funny as the news itself.
The show had to go there, of course, and the sketch hits on a good idea: Highlight the stunning, bald-faced absurdity and evil of a nakedly political decision that’s been shoehorned into existence by a Supreme Court led by the conservative views of justices who owe their jobs to Mitch McConnell’s dirty maneuverings. Since the leaked draft decision authored by Justice Samuel Alito references a 17th century English jurist who supported witch burnings and marital rape, SNL turned back the clock to imagine just how a 13th century chat about abortion might go.
It’s funny in that rueful sort of way, like “Isn’t all the terrible shit now so far beyond the pale that we’ve reached maximum ridiculousness?” That’s the point, of course. It’s hard to laugh at such an abjectly disgusting move by the regressive forces in modern U.S. life. If watching this sketch doesn’t make you even a little bit angry, you’re not the audience SNL is aiming to reach.