So if a woman goes in for her 20 week ultrasound and finds out that there is something seriously wrong with the fetus, what does she do if she wants to terminate the pregnancy? My understanding of the situation is that there is another procedure to terminate the pregnancy but it carries greater risks of infection and heavy bleeding than of the dialation and extraction method, which is now banned. This just seems insane to me. The health of the woman is of no concern here... Kennedy makes that clear in his decision.

This scares me... all women should be scared.

This decision should surprise no one. Kennedy vehemently dissented in Carhart - he and O'Connor had different views of what their (along with Souter) joint opinion in 1992's Casey decision really meant.

As a supporter of abortion rights, I for one am actually quite happy that we need to make our case to the American people in the legislative arena, rather than just relying on the thin reed of Supreme Court Justices to validate our viewpoint. Unitl we build an unassailable majority of Americans who support the right of a woman to choose, that right will never be safe.

For what it's worth, I blogged heavily on this topic yesterday, looking at three different angles on the story:

1. Significant numbers of Democrats in the House and Senate wavered when it came to protecting the health and safety of American women against a law specifically designed to recognize the importance of neither. Democratic leaders past and present, including Harry Reid, Tom Daschle, Pat Leahy and Evan Bayh, backed the Bush administration...

For the details, see: "Partial Responsibility: Democrats & the Court's Abortion Ruling."

1. Anti-abortion forces never really cared about intact dilation and extraction, a rare practice used in extreme late-term cases perhaps 2500 times annually. No, as its own advocates freely admit, the so-called partial birth abortion was all about marketing.

"(The) partial-birth abortion ban is a political scam but a public relations goldmine...This bill, if it becomes law, may not save one child's life...The major benefit of this bill is the debate that surrounds it." Randall Terry, Founder, Operation Rescue), News Release, September 15, 2003

For more background, see: "Marketing the Partial Birth Abortion Ban."

1. From the moment he entered the White House, President Bush proclaimed the "doctor-patient relationship" the centerpiece of his policies when it comes to Americans' health care. Just not, as it turns out, for American women. As today's Supreme Court decision upholding the 2003 Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act shows, President Bush and his Republican allies don't care much at all about the doctor-patient relationship when it comes to women's reproductive health and safety.

For the details, see: "The GOP War on the Doctor-Patient Relationship."

Jon, you, and the entire hard-core pro-choice movement, have fallen into the trap of unreason set up by the pro-life forces and their absolutism. Taking their arguments to their fruitiion, many forms of birth control such as the IUD and "morning after pill" would be outlawed. Taking your arugments to their fruition, an abortion could be performed during a woman's labor if she so chose. That's not what Roe v. Wade was all about, by the way.

I, for one, would applaud a legislator using his judgment and personal ethical responsiblity on an issue such as "partial birth abortion" rather than marching in lockstep with either of the extremes on this issue.

The abortion cases are all fairly silly stuff for the Supreme Court anyway. The Supremes made a huge error when the "discovered" the right to an abortion back in Roe and they've been stuck in a corner every sense. Looks like they are finally starting to unwind a bunch of silly case history.

Maybe they'll finally move the issue back into the political arena where it belongs. Let people vote, who cares if you get 50 different state laws on the subject. That is how the system is supposed to work.

I think Kang summed it up best during the '96 presidential campaign. "Abortions for some, miniature American flags for others". Or was it Kodos?

The New York Times this morning notes that Justice Anthony Kennedy "actually reasoned that banning the procedure was good for women in that it would protect them from a procedure they might not fully understand in advance and would probably come to regret." (NY Timees Editorial, 4/19/07)

Doesn't anybody notice that five Catholic men - from a church based partly on the selective exclusion of women from significant leadership roles - are impugning the ability of women to "understand" the complexity of their medical options in wrenching personal situations?

Scalia, Thomas, Alito, Roberts and Kennedy - all male adherents of a church best known for doling out millions to victims of sexual abuse - have decided that, even in cases where there is clear danger to health, medical procedures should be limited for these poor, less capable creatures who might not "understand."

Why? Because these five Catholic imams, with no medical expertise and a patronizing attitude towards women, have religiously based "moral" concerns!

That's just grotesque.

This is a great day!

And to think that you are all moaning because a procedure that involves a baby with its' feet visible in the birth canal, only to have a device go up to puncture its skull and suck out its brain has been struck down.

It is shameful to even try to defend such a procedure on a an innocent, defenseless baby.

Please do protest this decision. It will shed light on your vision for this country for all of the moderates that occasionally vote for you.

Well, as long as we are a rightous people and the lord gets his way, we can expect a lot more of this. Maybe when a justice says "I won't let my religion influence my decisions" we will think a bit more critically before believing him.

Hey TJ,

Cut the "personal privacy" b.s.

Holding a baby's feet and sucking out its' brains is not a matter of personal privacy. It is an act of barbery.

Having sex in my own home with my wife is a matter of personal privacy. Killing a baby that would live if delivered is not a privacy issue. It is a moral outrage. You are just to politically beholden to the de-balled men of the left to make the arguement.

To the wingnuts posting here:

Women who terminate their pregnancies in the 5th, 6th, etc. months do so because of medical complications to themselves or due to problems with the fetus of which there are many and are usually discovered in the second trimester. A woman doesn't suddenly decide after six months of being pregnant that she wants to have an abortion "just because." A friend of mine had to terminate her pregnancy in the fifth month due to a severe heart defect in the fetus that had it been carried to term would have only lived a maximum of one month had things gone good, had things gone bad the fetus would have died in utero. If the wingnuts have it their way, my friend would have been forced to carry to term knowing the baby would die... the wingnuts would want her to suffer longer rather than move on so that she can get back to trying for a healthy pregancy.

This ruling is an insult to women. I take offense that people would think women don't have brains. Or hearts.

Dan, do you actually believe that this ruling will prevent abortions? It won't! Rather, many women (and their husbands/partners) will suffer.... do you care about them?

Morally bankrupt people like Dan, the scumbag politicians, and the deceitful SCOTUS justices who have brought this to pass, because they think they have the right to make medical decisions for everyone rather than doctors and patients, and without compunction put women at risk, are the true evil rotting out our country. People like "Urban Planning Overlord", who seem to think that politicians in state governments have any role making medical decisions, are just plain nutjobs and I have no problem making such an accurate characterization based on precisely the facts cited.

Unfortunately, folks like Evan Manvel are also lost in their own type of nuttiness. Although I voted for Gore, and personally argued with several friends and family members to not vote for Nader (I believe I succeeded), I personally believe it's about time to grow up and accept that there has been no scientifically proven case, and many researchers have tried, that Nader cost Gore the 2000 election. There have been a lot of nutty amateurs playing with numbers who purport to prove this, none of that work I have seen stands up to credible statistical analyses. Gore cost Gore, and us, much more than the election because he ran an unbelievably poor campaign. Get over it Evan, all of the intelligent, principled Democrats I know have.

If you want to blame someone Evan, with justification, blame none other than our own Sen. Wyden and the other faithless Democrats who had the votes to filibuster the Roberts and Alito nominations, and flatly refused to. Wyden and his office staff were downright obnoxious to everyone I know who called specifically asking him to work to filibuster Roberts because Roberts would work to effectively overturn Roe v. Wade AND because Roberts was flatly dishonest about a number of things in his confirmation hearing. Wyden publicly stated: "There is no doubt in my mind that John Roberts will vote to overturn Roe v. Wade", and then did nothing to participate in mobilizing Democrat opposition to Roberts. His final public response to constituents asking him to filibuster was that he supported Roberts because he believed:

"One, on the basis of his public testimony, it is hard to see Judge Roberts as a man who will walk into the white-pillared building across the street and set about tearing apart the fabric of our society."

"Two, on the basis of his public testimony, it is hard to see him as a judicial activist who would place ideological purity or a particular agenda above or ahead of the need for thoughtful legal reasoning."

"Three, on the basis of his public testimony, it is hard to see John Roberts as a divisive, confrontational extremist who would try to further exploit the divisions in our society."

Finally, Wyden did vote for Roberts without hesitation, saying: "He can help to unify the country by building a record of well-reasoned opinions, grounded in the rule of law, not ideology. He will receive my vote tomorrow to be the next Chief Justice of the United States." Wyden and those who seem to speak up as his supporters have never struck me as being particularly bright, or as having anything resembling a backbone or integrity. I think this is proof enough of that.

You can blame Nader contrary to the evidence all you want, but to not hold a weasel like Wyden directly responsible is typical of the stupidity all too frequently exhibited here. You want to do something constructive: Start working tomorrow for someone to beat Smith (Novick is looking very interesting, although my vote will hinge on him showing he prefers to be characterized as an enlightened egalitarian rather than a populist, on the whole populism is not progressive nor particularly enlightened) AND on finding a true progressive Democrat to beat Wyden in the primary two years from now.

Boy do you have a narrow view of things Dark Ages. Let's do the math. Nader got 97000 votes in Florida in 2000. Gore lost to Bush by 537 votes. I'm willing to bet that plenty of those voters would have voted Democrat. So yeah I would blame Gore. Second Wyden didn't fight Roberts because he was replacing a conservative Chief Justice. There wasn't anything to fight. It was the same guy relacing Rehnquist. He voted against confirming Alito which was where the real battle was the altered the court. Unfortunately as much as I disagree with Alito he was fully qualified to be on the Supreme Court as was Chief Justice Roberts. Nominations are the President's prerogative. I disagree but Alito was a shrewd nominee. Dark Ages...when the "progressive" nominee you like isn't nominated for whatever office are you just going to pout in a corner and not vote for anyone? Republicans learned how to unite under 1 candidate which is why we're in the boat we're in right now. Trying to burn Ron Wyden out of office is ridiculous and only bleeds his campaign tank dry so some joker of a Republican has a chance. Why don't you point your energy at Republicans rather than campaign against Democrats. Maybe you'll accomplish something positive if you do that.

TJ,

You are so weak.

Your arguement about defining the fetus,(imagine its's feet visible in the birth canal) as part of the mother (just like her finger nails) is morally bankrupt.

One more example of President Clintons dembots defining what the meaning of "is" is.

Dan,

Why don't we let women vote on abortion and men like you and me don't get to voice their opinion on something that doesn't have any effect on them.

And what about the fact that there is no exception in this law for the mother's health? Where does that stand on the moral spectrum? If a woman's life is at risk if the pregnancy is carried to term, then shouldn't her life, under the Constitution, be paramount? Where is the morality in disregarding a woman's life and health?

Dan, the only moral bankruptcy here is a fearful, psychologically-damaged person like you believing you have the right to make medical decisions for someone else because you can't cope with the complexities and realities of the world.

Stephanie V.: It only "strains credulity" amongst the tragically credulous to believe, and to continue to obnoxiously assert, in the absence of any fact and the efforts of many researchers to prove it, that Nader cost Gore the election. What people like you fail to realize is that the small segment of a people across the country who voted for Nader did so BECAUSE they were put off but an extremely obnoxious and self-serving segment of the party typified by Wyden and Gore (and apparently you) at that time.

Garrett: You're not doing anything resembling math, and you have ZERO evidence from Florida to prove that, in the absence of Nader, the margin would have flipped the other way (particularly since Gore actually won Florida). Gore, and that segment of clueless idiots in our party who are the same people still blaming Nader lost Gore the wide majority in Florida that would have stood up to the voter suppression and vote counting shenanigans (Gore actually won under any fair count of the votes, remember?). A LOT of idiot registered Democrats in Florida voted for Bush, some of them not even in the group of working class Republicans who are registered as Democrats and too lazy to even re-register A lot of other folks voted for Nader because they wouldn't vote for Gore, but absolutely wouldn't vote for Bush. I had plenty of personal experience with Democrats from families of generations of working class Democrats who felt that way, and who I'll wager are better defenders of traditional Democratic Party values then most people here can ever hope to be. The only ones I could get through to were those working people who I could calm down, and get to consider how other minority and economically disadvantaged folks who had even more at stake were voting for Gore, so they had to do it for them. Those are the folks who are repelled by Democrats like you who rail against Nader even to today, but still vote for a lot of Democrats-in-name-only out of nothing more than resignation, with a healthy dose of lingering resentment. The kind of people who Wyden screwed with his vote on the bankruptcy bill, for instance.

Until people like you and Stephanie V. buy a clue, and get on the back of betraying, self-serving weasel Democrats like Wyden who are personally responsible for this abomination, instead of offering weasel rationalizations for him, you are the problem in our party. You are the ones costing us votes, and for sure you are costing us the overwhelming political strength needed to shutdown the traitorous, treacherous, religious-nutcase right wing in this country.

It strains credulity to assert that Ralph Nader's presence on the ballot was not the single most quantifiable factor that cost Al Gore the White House.

Hm. I thought this thread was about the Supremes' ruling on the so-called partial-birth abortion ban. As for Nader, I was unaware that he needed anyone's permission to run for public office. (Whether or not he's a twit is another matter entirely.)

As for fetuses and Dan's argument: I'd like to ask Dan which other medical procedures he would like to outlaw. (Personally I'd go for "body sculpting".) But then I assume Dan (and many other) will reply that abortion is not a medical procedure. And that attitude, of course, kind of makes it impossible to achieve any sort of societal compromise on the topic..or at least any sort of stable compromise.

Dark Ages, You are so narrow and have no clue of political reality.

Lin, Nader came up because if Gore had been in office this wouldn't have happened.

Either way we're stuck with what we have. Bush fought within the rules and got his guys on the high court so that they could make rulings like this. Until we get Democrats back in office and make nominations of judges who understand the constitution we're stuck like this for quite some time and really just have to hope that none of the Justices have any sort of reason to resign from the court or pass on.

Frankly Garrett, I'm content to rest on the evidence who lacks any kind of integrity by failing to squarely place responsibility for what has come to pass, based solely on the facts, on the moral and character failures on that segment of venal Democrats like Wyden. He has a role and a vote in the Senate for which he has sole discretion and responsibility, and with regard to SCOTUS confirmations he has handled that role and vote in a way that has been a betrayal. He is condemned by his own words cited previously.

Jenni Simonis:

And people wondered why we fought so hard against Bush's two nominees. Boy, them getting appointed didn't matter, did it?

Bob T:

We could have used another when the Kelo decision was heard. Anyway, both sides will disappoint their respective supporters more often than people care to admit or notice. Too bad, by the way, that Roe wasn't decided using some 9th Amendment reasoning (such as what Kennedy did for the Texas sodomy case) instead of the vague "privacy" reference (very selectively used ever since).

Bob Tiernan

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