Today the Supreme Court upheld the federal ban on “intact dilation and extraction” abortion procedures, termed “partial birth abortions” by those given to inflammatory speech. Yet another backward step to thank our President for. From the New York Times article Supreme Court Upholds Ban on Abortion Procedure:
…Today's decision gave the anti-abortion forces what they had hoped for with the more conservative makeup of the high court since Justice Alito replaced Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Abortion opponents are sure to be pleased by some of the language in Justice Kennedy's opinion, including his observation that “the government may use its voice and its regulatory authority to show its profound respect for the life within the woman.”…
…”I applaud the court for its ruling today,” Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the Republican minority leader in the House of Representatives, told The Associated Press. “My hope is that it sets the stage for further progress in the fight to ensure our nation's laws respect the sanctity of unborn human life.”
But Eve Gartner of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America said the ruling “flies in the face of 30 years of Supreme Court precedent and the best interest of women's health and safety.” The ruling sends the signal that “politicians, not doctors,” will make health-care decisions for women…
…Roberta Combs, president of the Christian Coalition of America, said: “With today's Supreme Court decision, it is just a matter of time before the infamous Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 will also be struck down by the court.”
Y'know I dismiss slippery slope arguments nearly all the time, but it's kind of hard to ignore the fact that these folks come flat out and say they want to end all abortion by taking away a woman's right to choose what happens inside her body.
It's also hard to ignore that the Supreme Court of the United States of America, after 34 years of upholding a woman's right to choose as more important than the right to life of an unborn fetus/embryo/zygote, has now done an about-face and approved a ban on certain types of abortion procedures, procedures that are considered necessary by many in the medical professions.
Late term abortions are pretty controversial in my book, and I have a lot of trouble accepting the practice, which is to say, I don't like it at all. But I still feel the ultimate decision lies with the pregnant person herself, not the government, and certainly not a religious fanatic who is trying to enforce his or her morals on the pregnant person via the government.
I view today's court decision as a profoundly disturbing mistake. I hope it does not become a wedge used to erode women's reproductive rights further in the future, as the anti-abortionists seem to hope it will.
I'm also fed up with the inflammatory anti-abortion/anti-stem cell research rhetoric. I'm sick of hearing abortion opponents decry that young pregnant women are “lining up to kill their children” and other such bullshit. If you sat down in a restaurant and ordered fried chicken, anti-abortionist or not, you'd complain if you received a plate of fried eggs because you know damn well that eggs aren't chickens. Scrambling an egg is not the equivalent of killing a chicken, anymore than cracking open a chestnut is the equivalent of felling a tree.
Zygotes and embryos are not human beings. They are a form of human life, yes, but they are not humans. Through the fetal stage they become human beings, but it isn't clear exactly when. This is why I have moral issues with late-term abortions. If at the conclusion of a normal pregnancy, what emerges from the mother's birth canal is a person, then surely it was a person sixty minutes earlier. The question of exactly when does a fetus become a person plagues me.
It would be great if ultimately there were no abortions (which is why birth control should be readily available in this country, and taught in school), but at some point a medical professional may decide that a woman's life is in serious danger unless she receives an abortion. I don't think that the law should be tying his hands or hers, no matter when during the pregnancy that conclusion is reached.
Ron of Ron's Blog notes that we are going to be paying for the Bush court for a generation. No lie, say I. 
Don't let it depress you too much.
Why? Because everyone who has ever had to take medication for depression is on a government list.
Gun advocates consider it outrageous that some people suggest a national gun registry. But take care of your medical problems and some of your most personal information is in a government database.
So, sad people are more of a threat than armed ones.
It is very disturbing to me when medical decisions are taken out of the hands of the medical profession and put in the hands of the law.
Late-term abortion is extremely upsetting — and you'll never get an answer to when a fetus becomes a person. Perhaps there's another metric you can use — nervous system. Undoubtedly the fetus aborted late in the woman's pregnancy feels the pain of that procedure, and that is a deeply upsetting thought. I believe that if I were pregnant and was told by my physician that it was my life or the fetuses, as difficult and painful as that decision would be, I would choose my own life because I have a responsibility to take care of the children I already have. If I didn't have children, it would be more difficult, but I think I would still choose my own life. I know me better.
I am in complete agreement with you on the issue of birth control. I think it should be free and readily available to all sexually mature people, without their parents' permission. Sorry, parents. Pay attention to your kids if you don't like it. When I was at Brown, birth control was either free or very cheap at the health office. There were also little alcohol wipes by the public phones. Brown was way ahead of their time.
But we're a long way away from that. One of my GS moms pulled me aside during the last meeting and wanted to talk about the “family life” education that the fourth graders are getting. She thought it was too early for them to be finding out “how the sperm gets to the egg.”
I don't agree. It's just biology. But that's the town I live in. Very provincial. I wonder if the general public will ever be “enlightened.”
That is horrifying. I guess it's too late to flush my cialis. Just when I was starting to relax and take my time.
Everyone knows how the sperm gets to the egg, it drives a Hummer! Unless it's an executive. Then it has a chauffeur to deliver it in a towncar. Unless it's outside the US of Automobiles. Then it takes public transportation.
I think the thing that bugs me about this is that from all I've read, the procedure is extremely rare. Why do we need to legislate against something that occurs so infrequently? I think Chuck's slippery slope is right on the mark. By getting this into legal precedent, there is now legal standing for a fetus. And how can you argue that if a fetus has this right or that right, it does not deserve all the rights of a person. They have to start at the fringes because at the moment, they have no chance in the middle.
That bothered me, too, Bri. Reading the AMA website (Late-term pregnancy termination techniques), I got the impression that late-term abortion procedures are infrequently performed, and usually because the fetus has a serious health problem. It would be heartbreaking to have to carry a fetus that has no chance of survival, for example a fully anencephalic fetus. In that case, I think an argument could be made for the mother's health over that of the fetus, as pregnancy can be a very dangerous state (imagine a mother with pregnancy-induced diabetes, heart disease, or hyperemesis, which you don't need to imagine!). A sick mother should not be carrying a fetus that cannot live more than a few hours after birth. Even a healthy mother is at higher risk for blood clots and other dangerous conditions.
If fetuses suddenly get legal rights, then we should all increment our ages by 9 months. That would probably throw the social security system into turmoil, but the government needs to be consistent.
I have just read through (skimmed, in some places) both the majority (Kennedy) and dissenting (Ginsburg) opinions for this ruling.
The decision upholds the federal law against intact d&e, but leaves d&e alone. The opinion is full of the gory details of d&e, if you're curious. Also, please note that these are second-trimester procedures. Do not imagine a viable fetus.
My conclusion: the majority opinion is bullshit, a lie. It is paternalistic (to quote Cokie Roberts) — protecting women from the anguish they may feel over this painful decision some time in the future. It ignores prior precedent.
The point of Roe v. Wade is that a woman should be allowed to choose whether or not she reproduces. Abortions should be easily obtained before the viability of the fetus, and post-viability for health and life-saving reasons. The majority opinion is that even though many doctors can give good reasons for wanting to perform an intact D&E over a D&E, the intact D&E can't be performed. This completely ignores the issue of the woman's health. It ignores the doctors' expertise.
Thus, if a doctor feels one procedure is safer (and the reasons certainly sound believable, e.g. bony parts in the uterus causing tears, more passes in the uterus with instruments can lead to injury), then shouldn't the doctor decide whether or not to perform that procedure? Not according to the court.
It certainly is an attack on women's rights. I didn't see it that way until I read the opinion. But the reasons for upholding this law are absurd. There can't be another explanation, except it's the beginning of an attack against abortion rights.
We've all lost rights with this administration. Now women are being singled out to lose rights, and it's very frightening. The religious right scares the shit out of me.
“There once was a time when all people believed in God and the church ruled. This time was called the Dark Ages.”
–Richard Lederer