MY Vast Right Wing Conspiracy

SCOTUS Upholds Partial Birth Abortion Ban

• Posted by Beth on April 18th, 2007 filed in General, Pro-Life, SCOTUS    

Megyn Kendall said on Fox News (TV) that “any other day this would be getting wall-to-wall coverage.” That’s how important this is.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court upheld the nationwide ban on a controversial abortion procedure Wednesday, handing abortion opponents the long- awaited victory they expected from a more conservative bench.

The 5-4 ruling said the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act that Congress passed and President Bush signed into law in 2003 does not violate a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion.

5-4, with the usual suspects dissenting: Stevens, Breyer, Souter, and Ginsburg, who wrote:

“Today’s decision is alarming,” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in dissent. She said the ruling “refuses to take … seriously” previous Supreme Court decisions on abortion.

Ginsburg said the latest decision “tolerates, indeed applauds, federal intervention to ban nationwide a procedure found necessary and proper in certain cases by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.”

I’m no constitutional lawyer, but it seems to me that if all Supreme Court decisions were to absolutely be based on previous decisions, America would look quite different from how it does today–and nobody would be too happy about it. Obviously I’m not dismissing precedent, but whatever. The American College of Obstretricians and Gynecologists isn’t a higher authority than the Constitution. Her “tolerates, indeed applauds” commentary means nothing to me, because it’s based on her own personal opinion. Furthermore, the “procedure found necessary and proper” by medical authorities isn’t completely ruled out when it is “necessary and proper.” From Bloomberg News:

The court stopped short of overruling the 2000 case, Stenberg v. Carhart, saying the federal statute was narrower in key respects than the Nebraska law. The majority also left open the possibility that doctors could ask a judge for permission to use the disputed procedure for particular medical conditions that pose a health risk to the mother.

Anyway, constitutional law aside, since I’m not a lawyer, partial birth abortion is barbaric, violent, gruesome, and painful for the baby. It’s appalling that it has ever been considered a “choice” for anyone who doesn’t need it. And yes, even in the cases of those who need it to save their lives, it’s still the same horrific procedure; I just can’t say a mother should have to die without it. (I do question how many are “medically necessary,” though.) Either way, this is a good day for humanity, and a bad one for demagogues who put ideology before the value of a child’s life.

The law, which has never taken effect [due to legal challenges --Ed.], is the first federal abortion restriction since the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision established the constitutional right to end a pregnancy. The case didn’t challenge the validity of Roe.

The measure outlaws procedures in which a fetus is partially removed from the mother before being killed. Although the law is aimed primarily at a procedure known as intact dilation and extraction, or intact D&E, critics faulted the statute for not tracking the medical definition of that technique.

Legal analysis and discussion at SCOTUSblog.

Lots of hysteria on the left; you can find links to that and other commentary (and news articles) at Unpartisan.com.

A commenter at Feministe illustrates why some of these abortion activists think they “need” partial birth abortions in this nauseating bleat:

This generates an anger of unspeakable depth in me. I have 3 year old twins, and I classify my pregnancy as “invasive.” It was poorly timed, I didn’t have any support systems in place to handle the changes it made necessary, and it was medically high-risk. Which ultimately meant a lot of tests, a lot of doctors, and a lot of stress for me. I handled it, meaning that I just decided that pregnancy is just one of those weird physical conditions to be endured and that I was going to be fine and that I would deliver healthy children. And they are.
…

Two years after my children were born, I had a kidney removed. It had failed due to a defect that occurred in childhood and had been left unchecked my whole life.

My whole life. Including my pregnancy. While every organ in my fetuses was investigated and tracked with an eagle eye, no one once thought to run that sonogram over my own kidneys. Basically, I was a glorified suitcase for nine months. My health care was extended only to the capacity of supporting those fetuses. And that pisses me off.

So her argument is basically that she would have aborted “those fetuses” (her three year-old twins) if she had “support systems” in place to handle changes in her body that happen during pregnancy once they became particularly stressful? I don’t know how anyone can even *think* of their own children in that way. But I guess if you believe your child wasn’t your child until the umbilical cord is cut… Sick. That’s just sick.