SCOTUS on Abortion

[Nbadan]

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court upheld the nationwide ban on a controversial abortion procedure Wednesday, handing abortion opponents the long-awaited victory they expected from a more conservative bench.

The 5-4 ruling said the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act that Congress passed and
President Bush signed into law in 2003 does not violate a woman's constitutional right to an abortion.

The opponents of the act "have not demonstrated that the Act would be unconstitutional in a large fraction of relevant cases," Justice
Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion.

The decision pitted the court's conservatives against its liberals, with President Bush's two appointees, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice
Samuel Alito, siding with the majority.

Yahoo News (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070418/ap_on_go_su_co/scotus_abortion)

The ruling may not "violate a woman's constitutional right to an abortion" but it does violate her constitutional right to live. How is it constitutional to take away a woman's right to do everything possible to save her own life? An unborn fetus has a right to live, but the woman whose body it resides in doesn't?

So-called "partial birth abortions" are not done for convenience. A woman doesn't suddenly change her mind after 8 months of pregnancy. They're done for medical reasons and the SCOTUS has no right to tell ANY woman that she can't have a medical procedure to SAVE HER OWN LIFE!

[George Gervin's Afro]

As long as the baby lives.. the mother's life is irrelevant! Of course Stevens did say he would reconsider his vote if the case came back with an exception for the mother's life..Ain't happening with the holy roller Chief Justice. As long as Roberts is on the court this case will never be heard again..

[smeagol]

Culture of death

[Extra Stout]

You'll have to pardon my ignorance... but what exactly does a D&X procedure do vis-a-vis saving the mother's life, that cannot also be accomplished by inducing labor and giving birth?

As I understand it, the doctor has to arrange the fetus into a breech position, then, bring everything but the fetus's head out of the uterus, then shove a sharp object into the base of its skull, then vacuum out the brain.

Can somebody produce a journal article detailing why this would be necessary?

[xrayzebra]

Yahoo News (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070418/ap_on_go_su_co/scotus_abortion)

The ruling may not "violate a woman's constitutional right to an abortion" but it does violate her constitutional right to live. How is it constitutional to take away a woman's right to do everything possible to save her own life? An unborn fetus has a right to live, but the woman whose body it resides in doesn't?

So-called "partial birth abortions" are not done for convenience. A woman doesn't suddenly change her mind after 8 months of pregnancy. They're done for medical reasons and the SCOTUS has no right to tell ANY woman that she can't have a medical procedure to SAVE HER OWN LIFE!

How is a woman threatened by a baby who is born,
shoved back into the Vagina with a suction tube pushed
into the cranium sucking out it's brains.

I want you to explain that to me. Obviously giving
birth isn't what is threatening her.

[Crookshanks]

I heard Rick Santorum on Sean Hannity yesterday discussing the ruling. He's been fighting for this ban for 10 years and every time someone brings up the "life of the mother" argument, he's asked for documentation of an actual case where a partial-birth abortion was necessary to save the mother's life and there's yet to be one!

There are other procedures that can be done and that are more sound medically. Even the Medical Association has said that partial-birth abortion is bad medicine.

Partial-birth abortions are not done in hospitals - only in the the abortion clinics - that should tell you something!

The Supreme Court finally got one right! Thank you President Bush for Roberts and Alito!!!

[Yonivore]

Responding to the news yesterday that the U.S. Supreme Court had upheld a 2003 law that banned partial birth abortions, Senator Harry Reid said (http://www.cnn.com/2007/LAW/04/18/scotus.abortion/index.html?section=cnn_latest):


This was the first time the high court had heard a major abortion case in six years, and since then, its makeup has changed, with Roberts and Alito now on board.

Their presence on the bench provided the solid conservative majority needed to allow the federal ban to go into effect, with Kennedy providing the key fifth vote for a majority.

Alito replaced Sandra Day O’Connor, a key abortion rights supporter over her quarter century on the bench.

“A lot of us wish that Alito weren’t there and O’Connor were there,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, who opposed Alito’s nomination, said.
I guess Reid’s handlers forgot to remind him he voted for (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=108&session=1&vote=00402) the legislation the court was upholding.

Gotta love them Democrats...they're always fer sumpin' a'fore they're agin' or vice versa.

[AFE7FATMAN]

http://ibdeditorials.com/IMAGES/cartoons/smltoon041907a.gif
They heard my position :toast

[Nbadan]

A Woman's Choice
I needed that now-banned procedure known as 'partial-birth' abortion. Why the Supreme Court's decision to outlaw it was a dark day for American women


http://msnbcmedia2.msn.com/j/msnbc/Sections/Newsweek/Components/Photos/070417_070423/070423_PartialBirth_hsmall.hlarge.jpg


The ultrasound technician's silence told David and I that something was very wrong. The doctor explained that the baby had anencephaly, a neural tube defect. Large parts of the brain were missing. Babies who survive birth may live days or weeks or months, but they perceive nothing, not even a mother's touch. There was no mistake, and nothing to be done. I scheduled an abortion. On Wednesday, May 14, 2003, in the early morning, 17 weeks into the pregnancy, David drove me to the operating room and I had my abortion. That night we told Toby and Simone that the baby did not grow all the parts that a baby needs to live, and had died. We hugged and cried.

On Wednesday, April 18, 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court suggested that women do not fully comprehend the abortion procedure, and thus may come to regret it. Not this woman. Four years ago, I asked my doctor whether the Federal Partial-Birth Abortion Act, which was then being considered by Congress, would outlaw the dilation and evacuation procedure he intended to use. Yes, he told me, it would.

snip

My health and future fertility depended on the best available medical care, which in this case meant that I needed the intact dilation and evacuation procedure, or "partial-birth abortion" to use the non-medical, ideological term. This wrongly politicized, legitimate and standard medical procedure results in the removal of the fetus with the least probing and instrumentation, greatly reducing the risk to the woman of bleeding, infection and uterine rupture, all of which may lead to infertility.

snip

Last Wednesday was a dark day for women, and for the men in their lives who care about the health, autonomy, freedom and equality of women in 21st-century America. The high court took a giant step backward when it upheld the federal abortion ban, sweeping aside decades of its own constitutional precedent protecting women's health, in favor of ideology.

The Supreme Court decision means that judges and lawmakers may now dictate to doctors what they can and cannot do in the operating room. It means that surgeons who want to do what's best for their patients do so now at the risk of criminal prosecution. And it means that thousands of women will undergo second-best procedures carrying greater risk; many will face dire health consequences, as well as the loss of future fertility. We are now in a country where judges and lawmakers are allowed to tell doctors how best to care for their patients. This cannot stand.

[Extra Stout]

OK, I do not support the banning of abortion procedures for obviously non-viable fetuses, such as one suffering from anencephaly would be.