Well, it's in the context of "The ongoing debate continues surrounding the attempt to once again criminalize abortions or to once and for all guarantee the freedom of the individual women's right to decide for herself whether she will have an abortion."
Which, by the way, is a stylistic atrocity that hurts my inner ear as well as a moral atrocity.
Note the way she splits the infinitive with a couple of words, and then proceeds to split another infinitive with no less than twelve words. But apparently that second split infinitive bothered her at some unconscious level, so she used the word "to" twice, thus commiting a grammatical solecisim, "or to . . . to decide."
I grant that it's hard to know what side she's on, because her style here is so damned vague, fuzzy, and overblown.
"Note the way she splits the infinitive with a couple of words, and then proceeds to split another infinitive with no less than twelve words. But apparently that second split infinitive bothered her at some unconscious level, so she used the word "to" twice, thus commiting a grammatical solecisim, "or to . . . to decide." "
I write a lot, but I am an engineer and write "by ear" rather than by grammatical rule. So thank you for the analysis because what I'm hearing is just so awful that I thought I was going nuts.
But of course, you don't have to think to be on the Supreme Court, your clerks do all the writing.
Your command of the English language and its proper syntax is very impressive.
Yes, I mean that.
Except the "to decide" is actually part of a phrase used as an object, "freedom of the individual women's right to decide ..."
Dear Cicero,
"But apparently that second split infinitive bothered her at some unconscious level, so she used the word 'to' twice, thus commiting a grammatical solecisim, 'or to . . . to decide.'"
I thought the second "to" was part of the infinitive "to guarantee," which only has four words splitting it.
sitetest