ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel was supposed to have Vice President Kamala Harris join him on Tuesday for an interview that almost certainly would have focused on how supposedly horrible the Arizona Supreme Court is for allowing an 1864 pro-life law to be enforced. Harris couldn’t make it, but that didn’t stop him from arguing with the ghost of Justice William T. Howell, played by actor Nick Offerman, and not appreciating that Howell could view the abolition of slavery and abortion as logically consistent.

Kimmel began, “During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln hired a lawyer named William T. Howell to write the legal code for the new territory of Arizona. His job was to make sure that the new laws abolished slavery, which they did, but he also worked on a number of other laws, including a ban on abortion, which is the law the Supreme Court decided to uphold last week, 160 years later, and the person we have to think about that is Justice William T. Howell, who obviously is not with us anymore, but he is the person who -- what?”

 

 

A digitally imposed Offerman then appeared and, playing the role of Howell as if he were a boxer and people from the 1800s were all stupid, began by wondering, “Who dares sully the honor of I, Arizona Associate Justice William T. Howell, who wrote the law of which you jest.”

Kimmel almost certainly got the information for this sketch from a recent Washington Post article on Howell. Not only did Kimmel not see the connection between how slavers portrayed the slave and how pro-choicers portray the unborn, he also completely omitted that Howell also wrote in provisions for married women to own property.

Nevertheless, Kimmel and Offerman tried to portray Howell as an old-fashioned sexist, “Okay, well listen, Justice Howell, a lot of Americans, I don't know if you know this, are very angry that your law's taking away women's rights.”

Offerman tried to satirize pro-life arguments, but all he ended up doing was coming up with interesting euphemisms for genitals, “Well, if these women didn't want to be with child, why did they not sneeze after being pistoned with a fully engorged giggle stick? Why, tell me, did they not scrub their floral regions with barrel grease?”

Kimmel followed up, “Barrel grease? How did you become a judge?”

As a way to show how allegedly backwards the 1860s were, Offerman tried to joke that the way one became a lawyer in the 19th century had nothing to do with studying law, “I studied at a very prestigious law academy and was the pupil who shot the most nickels off a whore’s empty head. Does that satisfy your query, you godless spaghetti gobbler?”

The law may have been written 160 years ago, but that doesn’t mean that Kimmel and Offerman are 160 years more enlightened. If anything, they’re less enlightened.

Here is a transcript for the April 16 show:

ABC Jimmy Kimmel Live!

4/16/2024

11:46 PM ET

JIMMY KIMMEL: During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln hired a lawyer named William T. Howell to write the legal code for the new territory of Arizona. His job was to make sure that the new laws abolished slavery, which they did, but he also worked on a number of other laws, including a ban on abortion, which is the law the Supreme Court decided to uphold last week, 160 years later, and the person we have to think about that is Justice William T. Howell, who obviously is not with us anymore, but he is the person who -- what? 

NICK OFFERMAN [AS WILLIAM T. HOWELL's GHOST]: Who dares sully the honor of I, Arizona Associate Justice William T. Howell, who wrote the law of which you jest. 

KIMMEL: Um -- I do, I guess. 

OFFERMAN: Then prepare thyself for a spectral confrontation, you Italian consack. Pugilism. 

KIMMEL: Okay. 

OFFERMAN: Let that be a lesson to thee. 

KIMMEL: Okay, well listen, Justice Howell, a lot of Americans, I don't know if you know this, are very angry that your law's taking away women's rights. 

OFFERMAN: Well, if these women didn't want to be with child, why did they not sneeze after being pistoned with a fully engorged giggle stick? Why, tell me, did they not scrub their floral regions with barrel grease? 

KIMMEL: Barrel grease? How did you become a judge? 

OFFERMAN: I studied at a very prestigious law academy and was the pupil who shot the most nickels off a whore’s empty head. Does that satisfy your query, you godless spaghetti gobbler?

KIMMEL: No, that actually made no sense. Just like your law, which I think Arizona should nullify as soon as – 

OFFERMAN: Nullify? Nullify my law? 

KIMMEL: Yeah. 

OFFERMAN: Why, you soft-handed mug-eared fat kidneyed onion-eyed rattlesnake fang on the scrotum. You bacon-faced, pipkin-headed, brisket-beating, rump-fed, hand-sucked, caper merchant. 

KIMMEL: Okay, I don't even know even more. 

OFFERMAN: You scotch-fiddled, gore-bellied, fox-infested, son of a footless hedge pig. No!