The Supreme Court Finally Gets It Right

(FaithMouse by Dan Lacey)

In a 5-4 decision, the US Supreme Court ruled that the Federal ban on partial-birth abortion is legal. This means that the most horrendous form of what is in & of itself a horrendous procedure in any form has been banned nationwide, including all US Territories & Commonwealths. Unfortunately this will have a very, very minimal effect on the number of abortions performed. & many of those which would have been done by this means will still be done by other means.

Does it surprize me that the pro-murder crowd is loudly decrying this, NO! not for a moment. In fact that they even embrace this shows exactly how morally banktrupt the abortion fans really are. I've said it before & I will repeat myself here. Abortion & fetal stem cell research is on the same level as the atrocities done by the Nazis in the prison camps during WW II.

Even many abortion supporters are forced to admit that this is a horrific proceedure even as they support it. What Susan Estrich had to say in her latest column for FoxNews.com shows the extremes to which pro-abortionist will go:

"Gruesome? Sure. More gruesome than dismembering the body first and then counting body parts to make sure you haven’t missed anything? That shouldn’t be the standard. No one likes abortions, much less late ones. They are prohibited after viability in every state, unless necessary to save the life of the mother."

Notice the lies & half-truths. Esp the bit about them being prohibited after viability. The fact is that the definition of what is the health of the mother has been painted with so broad a stoke by the courts that anything can be used to justify the so-called health exception.

Earlier she also attacks the term partial-birth used to describe the procedure. "What "partial birth abortion" is generally understood to refer to is the D and X procedure, occasionally used by doctors in abortions after the first trimester, in which the fetus’ body is delivered largely intact rather than being dismembered first." While she is technically correct, partial birth abortion is not the official medical term, the term does accurately describe the proceedure for what it is. I wonder if she objects to any of the other popular terms used for medical proceedures that aren't the technical term? Probably not. I suspect that it is only when the non-medical term doesn't hide the horror of a type of abortion that she would object.

& what Justice Ginsberg said in her dissent (Souter, Stevens & Breyer concurring) further shows the extremes to which abortion supports will go to mislead about the facts: "It blurs the line, firmly drawn in Casey, between previability and postviability abortions. And, for the first time since Roe, the Court blesses a prohibition with no exception safeguarding a woman's health."

1st of all, this proceedure is only used in late term abortions when the preborn child is already viable by any reasonable definition of the term, it is her that is doing the blurring. & as for safeguarding a woman's health, see what I said above. There are still alternatives.

She is right about 1 thing, this is the 1st chip in the granite block that the Supreme Court created when it found a non-existant right to abortion in the Constitution: (It) "cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to chip away a right declared again and again by this court." The reality is that we are a very long way from overturning Roe v Wade & Doe v Bolton. & even when it finally is, & I firmly believe it will be, overturned, without a Constitutional amendment protecting the life of the unborn all it will do is return the debate to the states. That in itself is not a bad thing as it will force people to face the facts about abortion.

I don't know, but I suspect that the reason that Justice Kennedy was asked to write the majority opinion is because he was seen as the swing vote in this case. But given his strong dissent in 2000 when the Court declared the Nebraska law unconstitutional, Stenberg v Carhart, it is puzzling to me as to why anyone would think he would go over to the other side & declare this 1 unconstitutional.

As a Catholic, I was glad to see that all 5 Justices who are Catholic upheld this ban.

As for the future, this is definitely going to put a stronger spotlight on where the 2008 presidential candidates stand on abortion. This is also going to make the battle for the next Supreme Court nominee (probable in the next year & 1/2 but not definite) by President Bush even more difficult, but not impossible.

In the meantime, the US has taken 1 small step back from the precipice. & for those of us in states like Iowa where so much pro-death legislation supporting cloning & fetal stem cell research has passed into law recently, it gives us renewed hope & a sense of joy.

Complete docket for Gonzales v Carhart No. 05-380 (Includes lower court rulings, briefs & amici filings).

See the complete ruling & dissent here.

(Update: 22 April 2007 No surprize here. Planned Parenthood is already calling this decision reckless & using it as a way to raise funds to continue their pernicious efforts to murder the unborn.)