Juridics: USA: Supreme Court ban partial-birth abortions 5-4

A reporter for Washington Times [WaTi], Stephen Dinan, gives a succinct yet detailed report on the Supreme Court of the USA [SCOTUS] decision yesterday ending partial-birth abortions practised by some abortionists and defended apparently by the entire elite of pro-abortion organizations and the medical profession involved.

The Supreme Court yesterday upheld a federal law prohibiting partial-birth abortion, marking the first time a specific abortion procedure has been successfully outlawed.

The 5-4 ruling, which reversed the justices' decision in a Nebraska case seven years ago, is the first major shift since Justice Sandra Day O'Connor retired from the court and was replaced by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.

Yesterday he provided the key fifth vote, joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Anthony M. Kennedy, who wrote the majority opinion ruling that the government can ban a particular medical procedure if there are other options available and if the state has a reason to be concerned.

"When standard medical options are available, mere convenience does not suffice to displace them; and if some procedures have different risks than others, it does not follow that the state is altogether barred from imposing reasonable regulations," Justice Kennedy wrote. "The act is not invalid on its face where there is uncertainty over whether the barred procedure is ever necessary to preserve a woman's health, given the availability of other abortion procedures that are considered to be safe alternatives."

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing for the minority, said the ruling was "an effort to chip away at a right declared again and again by this court." She was joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter and Stephen G. Breyer.

"Today's decision is alarming," Justice Ginsburg wrote. "It tolerates, indeed applauds, federal intervention to ban nationwide a procedure found necessary and proper in certain cases by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists."

.In another WaTi article, Amy Fagan reports how the SCOTUS "Ruling opens abortion debate for '08" (Apr19,2k7):

The Supreme Court decision upholding a federal ban on partial-birth abortion predictably pleased the Republican presidential contenders and disappointed Democratic candidates.

To the Republicans it was "a step forward" and "correct"; to the Democrats it was "alarming" and a "dramatic departure." But partisans on both sides agreed the decision is the beginning, not the end, of the abortion debate in the 2008 campaign.

"This decision marks a dramatic departure from four decades of Supreme Court rulings that upheld a woman's right to choose and recognized the importance of women's health," said Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, New York Democrat and the perceived front-runner for Democrats' presidential nomination.

She had "warned of precisely this erosion of our constitutional rights" when she voted against both of President Bush's Supreme Court nominees, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.

The Republicans, all of whom have said they would nominate judges like Justices Alito and Roberts, called the decision a victory for pro-life advocates.

So, the whole victory is politicized immediately. However, there's a pre-political dimension which has to do with carrying your baby to term, or getting your abortion much earlier in your pregnancy so that your kid isn't half-born when you have it removed, instead of hacked to pieces. There's an ethical relationship at stake here between the mother and her offspring, that she must deal with earlier than a last-minute infanticide. The Supreme Court decided to ban only a narrow segment of abortion cases, abortions obtained by particularly irresponsible mothers and abortionist doctors. The rest of the industry remains intact--lobbyists, govt funding, Planned Parenthood, and political opportunists (speaking in the name of an assertedly absolute r+t of a woman to an abortion whenever and however she wants it or is compelled by others to seek it), like Hillary Clinton.

Whether all the Justices voting against this kind of abortion would find legislation constitutional that outlawed all abortions of every kind and for whatever reason they otherwise may take place (rape, incest, death of the mother if baby brawt to term, etc) remains to be seen. I would never support legislation that outlawed all abortions for any reason whatseover--which is what many of the Republicans and lobbyists of the fanatical r+twing want. "Pro-life" has a lot of injustice up its own sleeve.

But, thank God for the wisdom of this SCOTUS with Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito on board, and for the "swing Justice" Kennedy too. And let the partisan absolutist politicians rant and rave and foam at the mouth, but don't let them determine the law.