Supreme Court - Bad Move
Senator John Edwards released the following statement about today's 5-4 Supreme Court ruling upholding the federal abortion ban.
"I could not disagree more strongly with today's Supreme Court decision. The ban upheld by the Court is an ill-considered and sweeping prohibition that does not even take account for serious threats to the health of individual women. This hard right turn is a stark reminder of why Democrats cannot afford to lose the 2008 election. Too much is at stake - starting with, as the Court made all too clear today, a woman's right to choose."
posted by kate @ 4:36 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
On one hand, this is a disturbing decision because of its specificity. I'm not at all sure I'm comfortable with the Supreme Court, all of whom are lawyers and none of whom are practicing physicians, at least to my knowledge, deciding exactly which medical procedures doctors can and can not perform based upon their own judgment. Particularly since this decision seems far more motivated by personal morality than it does any sort of legal precedent. In fact, it pretty much ignores or overturns a whole slew of precedents. That's bad interpretation of existing legal statutes on the part of SCOTUS and means so very many things are now up for grabs.
On the other hand, I'm having a hard time getting as worked up about this as some. Certainly it's not a great decision, but it's being portrayed as one step away from overturning Roe v. Wade which it doesn't seem to be. Over 90% of abortions are performed in the first 12 weeks and are not even affected by this decision. Of the remaining 10%, only around 1% actually use this technique. This ruling certainly limits the options a doctor may have, but it doesn't constituently change a woman's right to choice. Indeed, I'm not even sure Partial Birth Abortions actually existed as a technique back in 1973 when Roe v. Wade was entered into cannon. It seems, then, to be a similar argument to the one used about the Second Amendment: When the founding fathers came up with it, they had muskets, not automatic guns and bullets that can shoot through walls. It's not terribly unlikely that many of the people who supported Roe v. Wade in the 70s would have been horrified by the idea of Partial Birth Abortions, as are many today. So claiming that this is a direct attack on Roe v. Wade is questionable at best.
Is it a bad ruling? Absolutely, but not for the emotional reason many seem to think.
That is a troubling decision.
I cant explain it in much detail, but if you go to another blog,
www.coldheartedtruth.com
They have a post on this, and the comment number one by 'indyvoter' explains it in much more detail.
Its not as bad as you think, for it exempts the ban if there is no other alternative, but only bans it when there are alternatives to this.
QJ sums up why I'm disturbed. I don't think this is the worst of it, but I am troubled. And I don't want to see it get worse.
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