The Supreme Court said Tuesday it will consider the constitutionality of banning a type of late-term abortion, teeing up a contentious issue for a newly-constituted court already in a state of flux over privacy rights.
The Bush administration has pressed the high court to reinstate the federal law, passed in 2003 but never put in effect because it was struck down by judges in California, Nebraska and New York.
The outcome will likely rest with the two men that President Bush has recently installed on the court. Justices had been split 5-4 in 2000 in striking down a state law, barring what critics call partial birth abortion because it lacked an exception to protect the health of the mother.
But Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who was the tie-breaking vote, retired late last month and was replaced by Samuel Alito. Abortion had been a major focus in the fight over Alito's nomination because justices serve for life and he will surely help shape the court on abortion and other issues for the next generation.
I wish I could say that I am hopeful in considering the outcome of this, but I am not. I believe that this is a foregone conclusion. I would once again love to be proven wrong.
I also think that this is just the first of many such cases which will erode the rights of women, minorities, and many of our civil rights.
howyouwas:
ReplyDeleteI can only hope that enough cases in the "I told you so" category go through the Supreme Court between now and the 11/06 election that sane Democrats can point at said cases and outcomes and show everyone that we knew what we were saying when we said no to Alito. ( long sentence, take a breath.
TCF East Hampton,NY
"Justus" Scalia stated last week that the constitution was not a living document. Meaning in his opinion it should not be amended from it's original form.
ReplyDeleteAbortion has been the carrot on a stick dangled in front of the cons to get their support, however should someone start a "deadpool" to which ones go next? The 22nd (already in progress), the 23rd, the 19th, the 14th? Your guess is as good as mine.
I recognize the fears of a "slippery slope" to erode the rights of women's reproductive choices, and as a man I tend to align pro-choice since it's not my body that's being affected, but I just read a description of the 3rd trimester abortion procedure and I don't believe it's a procedure worth keeping legal. They pull a live baby capable of surviving out of the mother then crush it's skull to kill it. Why is this something we should want the right to do? I recognize the argument about the need to protect a mother who would otherwise die from continuing to carry the child, but we have a procedure called a c-section that will alleviate this risk. Am I missing something here?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1892696,00.html
ReplyDeleteConsider that article from the UK. Consider its implications.
If 50 babies (that could survive on their own) are born after the "abortion", does it then make it murder?
And at what point is the child's "civil rights*" violated? Namely, his right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?
( I hate that term, that's the lingo of the slave 14th amendment "US citizen". Instead of "Constitutionally Protected Inalienable Rights" )
This is the greyest of areas for me.
ReplyDeleteI also cannot wrap my head around the need for these third trimester terminations. And I would probably support the law that outlaws them except it does not take into account the health of the mother.
I believe that there are many mothers who would be willing to sacrifice their life for their babies but that should not be forced on them by the law.
And as I have pointed out, I feel that this is just the beginning shot across the bow of the abortion issue. Roe vs Wade is definitely in danger of being overturned.
Hey Gryphen,
ReplyDeleteI just wanted to reiterate that a c-section would be an option that would spare the mother and child. Why do we need to have a healthy baby killed when it's out of the mother and the mother is out of danger? I don't think we should have to choose to lose the life of the mother or the child.
I support the right to choose and I recognize the impression that this could lead to a slippery slope towards making abortion illegal, but I think the law is more nuanced than that. Just because I think it should be okay for people to have same sex marriages doesn't mean I support inter-species marraiges, you dig? I'm not going to resist same sex marriage for fear it'll lead to beastiality.
Let's fight against things we disagree with. The slippery slope is a fallacy in the rules of logic.
Everyone misses the same thing in this debate, so I thought I'd pop in here to correct you and everyone else. Feel free to take credit for it.
ReplyDeleteThis case is not really about late term abortions, but rather about the absence of an exception to protect the health of the mother. The law contains language protecting the life of the mother, but not the health, which is required by the fairly recent Stenberg v. Carhart.
The answer to all of the other comments on your site is that requiring a c-section is just as violative of the right to control one's own body as forcing a woman to carry to term. Perhaps more so, since its also a fairly invasive surgery. And, even if it weren't, there'd still have to be a health exception in case the procedure would be more risky to the woman's health than the abortion or carrying to term.
One of the reasons people don't understand this stuff is that people see this as a debate on the awefulness of different types of abortion, when in reality its a debate on the rights of women to have their bodies controlled by her state or federal legislature who apparently don't care if she's healthy so long as she doesn't die as a result of their intervention.
Thanks for you input m-tro.
ReplyDeleteYou make a good point and I appreciate your attempt to help explain what is really at risk here.
I appreciate the clarification M-Tro. I agree that we should not have any law that requires a woman's life to be put at risk. As a friend of mine put it during a debate on this subject "I love my wife, I love my son, but if his being born was going to result in her death I'd have crushed his skull myself." I'd personally give my life to save one of my kids, but I'm not in favor of mandating that others do so.
ReplyDeleteI don't support any medical law that requires one person to die for the sake of the other. I'm not a woman or a doctor so I definitely need more information on why this procedure would ever be required. I agree that we should not allow any law to go on the books saying that a woman must die when medical treatment could save her. 100% agreed on that.
But I don't agree with the statement about "requiring a c-section" being a violation of a woman's rights over her own body, basically I don't consider my position to be one that would "require" a woman to make this choice. If you were told that you had a large tumor that was cutting off the flow of blood to your brain and that your options were to cut it out or die, you have the choice to do one or the other. I didn't cause the situation. The tumor did. In this case the medically threatening thing is the baby itself. Unless the patient refuses care (like some christian scientists) there's going to be a procedure of one sort or another - the abortion or a c-section - so I don't see how my argument forces a procedure on someone. The baby can live outside the mother in this situation, so what compels us to have the option to kill it once it's out? We don't intentionally kill one siamese twin to save another. We try to save both.
If there are any M.D.'s out there that could shed more light on why a c-section would not work and the late term abortion would be the only way to save a person's life I'd be open to hearing it. I'm going to try and get this answer on my own in the meanwhile. If the late term abortion is the only option that would save a woman's life than I agree that this law is a bad thing and should have been written with an exception for the health of the mother. If medical options exist to save both lives, why on earth would we want the right to end one?
One thing that bugs me is the continued protection of the "mother" of the child in the situation, and no one seems willing to address this:
ReplyDeleteAt what point does the "fetus" become a sovereign human with the rights protected by the Constitution, IE: the right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness?
To me, if it's living and breathing and even crying out, it's got those rights, and it's simply murder to kill it afterwards.
If it can survive an "abortion" which is essentiall lethal injection, and still survive a couple hours after being "delivered" we've got a real legal dialemma here.
http://health.dailynewscentral.com/content/view/0001453/40/
again, please see this report and the following British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology report: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/03065456
in the end, this puts a real wrinkle in the debate for me, who used to be totally in the same camp as all the other "mother defenders" we have here.
Facts are facts, if they are being born living at this late date, we must re-evaluate the procedure.