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‘Assault on inalienable human rights’: Literary professionals demand publisher cancel Amy Coney Barrett’s book while simultaneously declaring they ‘care deeply about freedom of speech’
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‘Assault on inalienable human rights’: Literary professionals demand publisher cancel Amy Coney Barrett’s book while simultaneously declaring they ‘care deeply about freedom of speech’

Over 500 individuals in the literary community signed an open letter this month calling for Penguin Random House to cancel Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s new book.

Signatories included “Rick and Morty” writer Erica Rosbe and employees of Barnes & Noble, Random House, and HarperCollins. Various publishers, members of the press, and freelance writers also signed the letter.

The signatories noted that they “care deeply about freedom of speech,” but they also believe that publishers should “uphold their dedication to freedom of speech with a duty of care.”

The letter started with a quote from a TED Talk by David Puttnam, a film producer and environmentalist, declaring that there should be a “balance” between freedom of speech and “wider moral and social responsibilities.”

The signatories claimed that publishing Barrett’s book would be an attack on “international human rights.” Therefore, they argued, canceling the deal would not be an act of censorship.

“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,” the letter stated.

The signatories unified against the book deal because Barrett voted to overturn Roe v. Wade. The letter argued that abortion access is a “fundamental human right.”

They accused Justices Barrett, Roberts, Kavanaugh, Thomas, and Gorsuch 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.”

According to the signatories, by voting to overturn the ruling, Barrett is guilty of “inflicting her own religious and moral agenda upon all Americans while appropriating the rhetoric of even-handedness.”

The literary professionals stated that Barrett’s book reportedly mentioned “how judges are not supposed to bring their personal feelings into how they rule." They accused Barrett of doing precisely that.

The letter slams Penguin Random House for paying Barrett a $2 million advance for the deal.

“This is not just a book that we disagree with, and we are not calling for censorship,” the signatories stated. “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.”

The signatories noted that they refused to “stand idly by” while the literary industry “misuses free speech to destroy our rights.”

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