strib: An insult to women, and the Constitution

[question everything]

StarTribune.com

Editorial: An insult to women, and the Constitution
The new Supreme Court flouts precedent -- and plain logic.
4/20/07

Tradition just isn't what it used to be -- at least not in the U.S. Supreme Court. In the old days -- that golden time when a Republican named Sandra Day O'Connor sat on the court -- justices regarded the decisions of years past as the foundation for rulings to come. Principle nearly always trumped politics, and long-settled law stirred reverence rather than scorn. No longer is it so. On Wednesday, the high court shrugged off three decades of precedent to conjure a conclusion that defies logic and law.

The question at hand? Abortion, of course. When President Bush replaced the retiring O'Connor and, soon after, the court's late chief William Rehnquist, his keenest wish was to appoint justices hostile to the landmark 1973 ruling on abortion rights. On Wednesday, the new appointees delivered as desired -- upholding a federal ban on a particular surgical technique occasionally used in second-trimester abortions. The ruling's disdain for precedent couldn't be clearer. A number of lower courts have reviewed the 2003 law barring use of intact dilation and extraction -- a method its critics provocatively call "partial-birth abortion" -- to terminate a pregnancy. All declared the law unconstitutional -- in keeping with the high court's own rulings.

(snip)

The federal law upheld Wednesday contains no such caveat -- but concern over its absence seems to have flown out the door with O'Connor. Justice Anthony Kennedy's majority opinion dismissed the need for a health exception altogether, noting "medical uncertainty" about whether the dilation and extraction technique is ever preferable to protect a woman's health. That claim likely comes as quite a surprise to members of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, many of whom have testified that the procedure is indeed medically necessary in some cases. Kennedy wasn't satisfied merely to sidestep evidence and tie the hands of doctors. His opinion's most imperious words were reserved for American women: The ban on this technique, he wrote, will actually protect a woman from the grief she'll feel "when she learns, only after the event, what she once did not know: that she allowed a doctor to pierce the skull and vacuum the fast-developing brain of her unborn child, a child assuming the human form." That sort of "chivalrous" sentiment is about as useful to women as a gut-crushing corset. In a dissent read from the bench, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg showed great restraint in describing Kennedy's insulting ideas as "ancient notions ... long since discredited."

(snip)

http://www.startribune.com/561/story/1132505.html

[FloridaJudy]

1. I'm so mad I could spit

Where does Kennedy get off with his statement "The ban on this technique ... will actually protect a woman from the grief she'll feel when she learns, only after the event, what she once did not know: that she allowed a doctor to pierce the skull and vacuum the fast-developing brain of her unborn child, a child assuming the human form."

I've worked as an OB/GYN nurse for over 30 years. I've never seen an intact D&E done on a woman with a normal pregnancy; invariably the fetus is dead, dying or grossly malformed.

These guys are talking out of their @$$es. No surprise: that's where they keep their brains.

Okay. I'll sit down and take my medication now.....

[question everything]

3. This is why men have no business deciding this matter

A guest on Bill Maher was saying something similar. An old conservative fool (still supports the war) who "marveled" at the US being "the only country" where women can get abortion whenever they want. Even the other conservative, a woman. mumbled that during late term abortion the fetus is, as you say, dead, dying or malformed.

[BrklynLiberal]

4. I am with you 110%!!!!!!!!

:mad: :spank: :nuke:

[Zodiak]

2. Relax, our powder is still dry

Nothing like keeping the ole powder dry on the deaths of innocent women, gotta protect those seats by not looking hard on Jeebus, you know.

:sarcasm:

Between the cowards and the fascists, I have no idea who to turn to in getting this ruling overturned.

[BrklynLiberal]

5. There may still be some hope based on Ginsburg's dissenting comments.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x719618

Denying the rights of any group is the same as denying the rights of all.
The "pro-lifers"..-who support war and the death penalty-:crazy: .. consider this just a foot in the door. We MUST all fight for the rights of every citizen, even if they are rights they we ourselves may never take advantage of.