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The Role of the Roberts Court
The Roberts Court has expressed its raison d’etre today by making it more difficult for women to get abortions. What an attack on our rights!
AP via Washington Post:
Supreme Court says Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act does not violate women’s constitutional rights.
Melissa at Shakesville says:
Five men—Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. and Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Samuel A. Alito, Jr., Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas—just decided that the health of every woman is America is worth less than a terminally ill fetus.
Joe at AMERICAblog says:
Obviously need more details, but this looks like a victory for the theocrats. They’ve got the Supreme Court they want now — and they won’t stop here. Yes, this means a woman’s right to choose is in peril. That’s the dream of Bush, his Republican party and the theocrats who support them.
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73 Responses to “The Role of the Roberts Court”
I guess Biology isn’t your strong suit, Chris.
C Stanley, I guess analogies aren’t yours.
Ah, well, I guess I had a bit of trouble seeing an analogy in a statement that was written as fact, not comparison: “it’s already happening”. If you were saying that opponents of ESCR believe that the procedures involved threaten gametes, then that’s untrue. If you were somehow making an analogy between gametes and embryos or blastocysts, well, perhaps you should have actually included some words to indicate that you were making an analogy rather than a
Oops, cut off my last word:
…statement.
Thank you, nicrivera.
Why should 5 old men with law degrees tell M.D.s with specialized training exactly how to do a procedure? 5 old men who don’t grasp that there really isn’t a procedure officially entitled “partial birth abortion” in the literature, and thus a sloppy law is capable of being interpreted any old way.
M.D.s ought to be up in arms. At least the non-Catholic, non-fundy ob-gyns ought to be up in arms. Docs are already skimping on pain relief for terminal cancer patients, for fear of criminal prosecution, in some jurisdictions.
And that’s just on the physician’s side.
WOMEN ought to be outraged that their health cannot be taken into consideration.
CS,
Why should I believe something from the National Right to Life Coalition on this issue? We all know that they will say and do anything to advance their agenda of a complete ban everywhere on abortion and those methods of birth control that they consider to be equivalent to it.
You refer to a statement by Ron Paul. In it he says “As an obstetrician…”. Honesty should have compelled him to say “As a Republican obstetrician…”. Just like the doctors who the conservative justices chose to believe his opinions are colored by his socially conservative politics. Because all of the claims that the health of the woman was considered are false. There was plenty of testimony, all right. But because of their political leanings the justices in the majority on this case chose to listen only to those who agreed with them.
Some conservatives try to claim that they only want to go back to the good old days where states could ban the procedure and have absolute control over women, not to give the federal government that control. Really? Does anyone really doubt the next move of the NRLC if they succeed in overturning Roe V. Wade should we have a government like the last six years again? A national ban would be passed and if a president as socially conservative as Bush gets to appoint one more judge the court would uphold it.
Some rights are absolute. You can’t force a histocompatible person to donate bone marrow (a continuously self-regenerating tissue) or a “spare” kidney to a family member or a stranger, even if it is the best shot at life that transplant-needing person has.
A fetus *is* a biological parasite. It is totally dependent on its host until birth at an advanced enough stage to be able to breathe without assistance. So far as I am concerned, the woman’s life and health *always* take precedence over that of the fetus she carries – unless the woman herself explicitly and voluntarily selects a course of action that prioritizes the health of the fetus.
BTW, that’s compatible with Orthodox Jewish interpretation, isn’t it, Holly? At least that was the idea I got from the semi-ultra-Orthodox Jewish gynecologic oncologist I worked with a while back.
CS wrote
I suggest you google “Phill Kline” “medical records”.
> Why should I believe something
> from the National Right to Life
> Coalition on this issue?
As opposed to you, given how you have been on here?
> A national [sic; federal]
> ban would be passed
*sigh* It would never happen. Well over 50% of the voters would be against it right from the start, and more once they suspected other things like federal “blue laws” might come next. The Religious Right (about whom many of the Left make such fools of themselves in their overreaction as well as their hatred, just as they do when the liberal media are correctly named as such) doesn’t even command a majority of the GOP, much less a truly powerful plurality among the population.
> So far as I am concerned, the
> woman’s life and health *always*
> take precedence over that of
> the fetus she carries – unless
> the woman herself explicitly
> and voluntarily selects a course
> of action that prioritizes the
> health of the fetus.
What if the mother-to-be, who has selected that pro-parasite course, wants to reverse course later? That is, wants to — it is elective, even merely of convenience?
How far along in her term? Even once labor starts and she decides it’s too unpleasant?
Do you draw a line, and if so, where, and why?
It’s food for thought.
This Court ruling in no way shatters Roe v. Wade, and the Act that was upheld is compatible with it.
“State criminal abortion laws, like those involved here, that except from criminality only a life-saving procedure on the mother’s behalf without regard to the stage of her pregnancy and other interests involved violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which protects against state action the right to privacy, including a woman’s qualified right to terminate her pregnancy. Though the State cannot override that right, it has legitimate interests in protecting both the pregnant woman’s health and the potentiality of human life, each of which interests grows and reaches a ‘compelling’ point at various stages of the woman’s approach to term.”
(a) For the stage prior to approximately the end of the first trimester, the abortion decision and its effectuation must be left to the medical judgment of the pregnant woman’s attending physician.
(b) For the stage subsequent to approximately the end of the first trimester, the State, in promoting its interest in the health of the mother, may, if it chooses, regulate the abortion procedure in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health.
(c) For the stage subsequent to viability the State, in promoting its interest in the potentiality of human life, may, if it chooses, regulate, and even proscribe, abortion except where necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother.”
Jim,
What did I ask you to belief from the NRLC? The link I posted was from their website but it’s a PDF file of a New York Times article. Are you saying that you don’t believe that it was a real article?? Honestly, you take this way too far with your unwillingness to even look at a source that you disagree with, Jim. It’s one thing to have a skeptical eye and look for instances where a source might be skewing information toward their point of view, but it’s another to act as though everything that is said by someone who has a point of view is to be ignored or discredited (as DLS noted, that would disqualify YOU from consideration of your own opinions).
And come on now, an obstetrician who is a Republican or a pro-lifer now has no right to have an opinion or to state that this is his opinion as an OB-GYN? Why do you seemingly think that his opinion is somehow tainted by his political affiliation, while doctors who are Democrats (or those who profit from providing abortions) are pure in their motives?
CS,
I suggest you read the article you linked to again. Nowhere in it does it mention Fitzsimmons testifying before congress. He was taped for an appearance on ABC’s Nightline that was never used. Let’s see what happens when you google “Ron Fitzsimmons”.
Slate
religioustolerance.org
And there are tons of anti-abortion sites that cite the article you linked to and call him a leader in the pro-abortion movement when in fact he was a lobbyist for a group of independent abortion providers. So yes, color me unimpressed.
My evidence for Mr. Paul’s having abandoned medical opinion in favor of his socially conservative politics is his own words in the same article you linked to:
Given that lovely paean to social conservatism I feel I have every right to suspect whether his medical opinion is colored by his politics especially since he continues with that same tone in the rest of his piece. But of course you won’t admit that he gave himself away. He has all the credibility of Bill Frist’s diagnosis via video tape of Terri Schiavo. I’ll stop here because frankly I always get more than a little pissed at the “profit from providing abortions” line because I know first hand how hard the biggest “provider” works to limit how much money they charge for everything.
As far as DLS is concerned I’ve ignored everything he posts for a long time. His right wing BS and hypocrisy is too predictable as is his taking one small part of what I posted from its context.
Well, Jim, your partisanship is also bringing many of us to the point where we ignore much of what you write as well. Why is it OK for someone to make statements like that from your perspective when you won’t allow it from the other side? Oh, I forgot, the truth is on your side, right?
As to Fitzsimmons testifying before Congress, I think I may have mixed up two different people in my mind when I wrote that, but that was an error on my part not from the NRLC website so I still don’t see how it substantially changes the facts that I was putting forward (that the statement that the procedure is rare and almost always used on deformed fetuses, by a pro-abortion lobbyist, was admittedly false information designed to mislead people about the procedure.) And when I asked Christine why she believed what she did about the procedure she is unable to say where she’s heard it; well, which side of the debate has a credibility problem here, when I’ve pointed out that someone stating what she believes (who is on that side of the issue) has already admitted that what he said was a bald faced lie, and she can’t produce any evidence to say otherwise?
C Stanley Says:
April 18th, 2007 at 8:13 pm
Hum… I’d appreciate you not implying that I’m ignorant and/or have credibility problems because I don’t have ‘documentation’ upon demand available. Not everything posted to the ‘net is literal truth, or even partial. For all you know the site you’ve quoted is a hack. PDF’s can be altered and quite easily. Nowhere did I site the person you have quoted as saying he was lying through his teeth for profit as being the one that said D&X are used primarily for fatal fetal problems. I guess I’m just not as passionate/rabid as others are.
CS gets snarky by saying “Oh, I forgot, the truth is on your side, right?”. This from the woman who believes that her side of the argument is so completely right about human life beginning at conception that they should have the right to force those who disagree to follow that belief anyway.
Since it was apparently too much effort for you to follow the links I provided I will quote extensively from one of them that points out the simple fact that both sides played games with the facts that they shouldn’t have.
christine,
I never implied that you were ignorant. I also didn’t question your credibility in the sense of accusing you of making somethng up, but forgive me for pointing out that if you use evidence in an argument but then say you don’t know where you heard it, that you really aren’t advancing your argument. And when someone else does have evidence that shows that you may have heard it from a source who later admitted that it was a lie, that (as I said earlier) your SIDE has a credibility problem.
As Jim points out (and I agree, not sure why you assumed that I didn’t or that I didn’t read your links) that BOTH sides distort in order to sway public opinion in the direction that they favor.
And yes, Jim, I am biased because I have a strong pro-life opinion. However, I admit my bias while you don’t want to admit yours.
What is my bias, CS? I believe purely in choice. I believe that others who believe in choice should admit and accept the Roe decision in full, which also includes that reasonable limitations on abortion in the later stages of pregnancy are legal. I also believe that everything should be done that will make that choice unnecessary, which means researching the best ways to encourage men and women to know everything they can about what they can do to not produce a pregnancy once they’ve decided to have sex. The absolutists on both sides annoy me tremendously.
Jim,
If the absolutionists on both sides annoyed you equally though then perhaps you’d criticize some of the pro-choice absolutionists who’ve posted here or those who’ve distorted the effects of this particular court ruling. Instead, you only mention your criticisms of the pro-life side and you argue that the justices who formed the majority opinion only ruled this way because of loyalty to the GOP (you also make the same charge against Ron Paul, which is a bit odd since he’s been one of the most strident opponents of the Iraq War and has been very critical of Bush).
Criticizing Bush and the war doesn’t mean that he won’t close ranks on other issues. He must have chosen his party affiliation for some reason. What’s really amusing is that the branch of the party that considers itself more libertarian has members that virtually worship Paul. I guess they don’t know about his more socially conservative tendencies.
As far as distorting this ruling it is true that some people have gone completely overboard. They’re completely nuts. But guess what? They’re on both sides. In Wisconsin the people who passed a much more restrictive state version of a D&E ban that would put any doctor who broke it in jail for life are saying that they ought to start enforcing their version now that the court seems friendlier to them.
Jim,
What I can’t figure out is why you think there’s a problem with a Republican agreeing with the Republican platform. Of course he must have chosen his party affiliation for some reason. Why would he be a Republican if he didn’t believe in the principles that the party (is supposed to) stand for? Would you think it odd that a Democrat would espouse a pro-choice position?
My point was that people who believe in the more libertarian aspects of Republican belief aren’t fond of the forced religious belief part of the party love Ron Paul. Their ignorance shows.
What I can't figure out is if they allow partial birth abortion on late term babies (let's face it – they are babies), why is a person charged with murder if they kill a woman and her unborn child? That leave's it solely up to the woman to decide if her child was a legitimate person or not. Does that sound logical?
With the exception of saving a woman's life I believe this should be banned.