Supremes show contempt for women
If you don't live under a rock, you've probably already heard about the disastrous ruling yesterday by the Supreme Court on an abortion case. The patronizing ruling by 5 old men on the court - Alito, Kennedy, Roberts, Scalia, and Thomas - is a blow to every American who supports a woman's right to choose. Oh yeah, and that other thing - what's it called? - good medicine. It's a blow to good medicine. Why? Because the majority opinion, penned by Kennedy, concludes that there's no evidence that an intact dilation and evacuation abortion - what pro-life propaganda has termed a "partial-birth abortion" - is ever medically necessary. This despite the fact that the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists have determined that, well, in some cases, they are medically necessary.
This is the first anti-abortion law that has been upheld by the courts that doesn't allow for an exception when doctors determine an abortion to be medically necessary.
While the Bush administration is praising the decision, newspaper op-eds around the country are condemning it.
From the New York Times - Denying the Right to Choose:
As far as we know, Mr. Kennedy and his four colleagues responsible for this atrocious result are not doctors. Yet these five male justices felt free to override the weight of medical evidence presented during the several trials that preceded the Supreme Court showdown.
From the LA Times - A U-turn on abortion:
THE U.S. SUPREME Court on Wednesday executed an unconscionable U-turn on abortion, upholding a restrictive federal law that is virtually indistinguishable from a Nebraska statute it struck down only seven years ago ... Ginsburg is right that it is a retreat, and one that can't be explained by anything other than a change in the court's membership.
From the Washington Post - A Shift on Abortion:
The most immediately disturbing aspect of the ruling is the majority's breezy dismissal of medical evidence that the partial-birth procedure is sometimes in the best interest of a pregnant woman's health.
From the Boston Globe - An erosion of abortion rights:
The five justices of the court majority and the politicians who passed the law they approved have overruled the best judgment of the doctors who are most informed on this issue. Politics could trump medicine again -- unless backers of abortion rights use the ballot box to steer the country back toward support of a woman's right to end a pregnancy.
Comments
Contempt for women AND doctors. I love Ginsburg's dissent.
So much for "strict" constitutional reading. This decision is as much steeped in ideology and moral platitudes as Roe v. Wade is so often accused of being.
Posted by: Derek Phillips | April 19, 2007 2:14 PM