Is Justice Scalia's Wife an Anti-Abortion Pregnancy Counselor?

A reliable voice against abortion, contraception, and really anything that doesn’t directly promote the welfare of white Christian landowners, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is a talk radio absorbing lunatic who thinks Satan is, like, a real guy. He’s also married to a woman who once sat on the board of a so-called Crisis Pregnancy Center and may currently work as a “sidewalk counselor” (let’s be real: “abortion clinic protester”). So why is Justice Scalia allowed to weigh in on a Supreme Court Cases that might directly affect his family?

The intrepid Lauren Rankin over at Salon did some digging around this week, and found that Scalia’s wife is elbow deep in the pro-life movement. She’s so involved that in some cases, Rankin argues, it would be ethically appropriate for Scalia to recuse himself.

Justice Scalia’s wife, Maureen Scalia, is a “Pro-Life Advocate” who, until last Monday afternoon, was listed on its website as a board member of the Nurturing Network, a crisis pregnancy organization. In an email to Salon, Ann Granger, director of communication for the Nurturing Network, stated that Maureen Scalia is a past board member of TNN, but no longer on its board. Granger also stated that she would let the webmaster know to update this information. Soon after, Maureen Scalia vanished from TNN’s current Board of Directors page (though this cache of the page on April 7, 2014, shows her listed on the website). Her TNN profile page is still live, as well.

There’s more.

According to its website prior to being updated on Monday afternoon, Maureen Scalia is a board member of the Nurturing Network as well as a “Crisis Pregnancy Counselor” atHope in Northern Virginia, a crisis pregnancy center located in Falls Church, Va.

When asked if Maureen Scalia is currently a counselor with Hope in Northern Virginia, a spokesperson for the CPC told Salon, “I can neither confirm nor deny that.”

So why does this matter? Because this June, the Supreme Court will hand down their ruling in McCullen v. Coakley, which challenges a Massachusetts law mandating 35-foot buffer zones around abortion clinics. If Justice Scalia is ruling on a law that would impact his wife’s livelihood, then he should have either recused himself from ruling or explained why he wasn’t recusing himself.

But that’s a lot to hope for from the man who once used the phrase “argle bargle” to refer to the majority opinion that overturned the Federal Defense of Marriage Act.