That decision by the Supreme Court on a bill from 2003 passed with the help of both parties relegates women to a lesser role in our society. It says they are not to be considered able to make their own decisions, that they are not worthy to do so. It will not only be harmful to the health of many women, it says to all of us that we are taking a step backwards in the 21st century as far as individual rights are concerned.
I posted about it the other day, and many responses showed me that we never really left the last century. Too many feel that it is perfectly all right to put limits on a woman's ability to make decisions. It will criminalize doctors. That is another shocking part. They could serve up to two years in jail. This is a terrible thing.
These are hard-hitting articles.
Father Knows Best.
Dr. Kennedy's magic prescription for indecisive women.Kennedy invokes The Woman Who Changed Her Mind not once, but twice today. His opinion is a love song to all women who regret their abortions after the fact, and it is in the service of these women that he justifies upholding the ban. Today's holding is a strange reworking of Taming of the Shrew, with Kennedy playing an all-knowing Baptista to a nation of fickle Biancas.
As a matter of law, the majority opinion today should have focused exclusively on what has changed since the high court's 2000 decision in Stenberg v. Carhart. Stenberg struck down a Nebraska ban that was almost identical to the federal ban upheld today. That's why every court to review the ban found the federal law, passed in 2003, unconstitutional. What really changed in the intervening years was the composition of the court: Sandra Day O'Connor, who voted to strike down the ban in 2000, is gone. Samuel Alito, who votes today to uphold it, is here.
And from TAP: The federal "partial-birth" abortion ban has grave implications for all pregnant women, not only those seeking to end pregnancies.
Miscarriage of JusticeOne very chilling part from the Prospect article:
"But at least one federal court has said that sending police to a woman's
home, taking her into custody while in active labor and near delivery,
strapping her legs together and her body down to transport her against her
will to a hospital, and then forcing her, without access to counsel or court
review to undergo major surgery constituted no violation of her civil rights
at all. The rationale? If the state can limit women's access to abortions
after viability, it can subject her to the lesser state intrusion of
insisting on one method of delivery over another.
There are other implications to upholding laws that award the fetus separate
and greater rights than those of the woman. Comments by Kennedy in a
concurring opinion in another Supreme Court case, Ferguson, suggest that he
would have no objections to advancing fetal interests by permitting states
to "impose punishment" on a woman who even "risks" causing harm to the
fetus. In that case, the purported risks were those created by low-income
pregnant women who used illegal drugs and who had no access to appropriate
drug treatment despite seeking health care."
Are you feeling creeped out yet? I am .
From Salon:
Danger: Pregnant women thinking"But as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg points out in dissent, Kennedy doesn't
propose giving women more information about partial-birth abortion
procedures. He says it's up to the Congress and the courts to substitute
their judgment and ban the procedures altogether."
The Times notes, "This way of thinking, that women are flighty creatures who must be protected by men, reflects notions of a woman's place in the family and under the Constitution that have long been discredited," a point that Justice Ginsburg made in her dissent but that bears repeating. The majority opinion -- or, "atrocious result," as the Times aptly calls it -- "severely eroded the constitutional respect and protection accorded to women and the personal decisions they make about pregnancy and childbirth."
Yes, it has eroded the constitution by not treating women as equals, able to make up their own minds with the advice of their doctor. But one of the parts that will chill many in the medical community as well as a woman and her family.....the religious view of the fetal rights over the rights of women. We can pretend it is not a religious based action, but that part is and is dangerous.
And the more you look at what Wednesday's ruling says about our highest court's view of women's rights and autonomy, the worse it gets. Over at the American Prospect, National Alliance for Pregnant Women prez Lynn Paltrow makes the obvious connection: If fetal rights are more important than maternal rights when it comes to abortion, you can probably argue that fetus trumps mom in other areas, too, like forcing C-sections on reluctant mothers in the interest of fetal health, or penalizing pregnant women for not practicing optimal prenatal care.
Sounds extreme, doesn't it? Well, Paltrow writes, "this argument is already being used to justify court-ordered Cesarean sections in cases where physicians believe that a c-section will prove more beneficial to the fetus (this despite the fact that c-sections constitute major surgery and pose increased health risks to the pregnant woman and in some cases the fetus as well)." As of now, she says, the practice is rare.
I agree with that Vermont doctor who said:
“This bill will chill the practice of medicine and endanger the lives of countless women. Despite what politicians tell you, there is not an epidemic of third trimester abortions in this country. This kind of legislation serves the sole purpose of chipping away women's constitutionally protected reproductive rights and overturning Roe v. Wade.
A doctor says congress should not practice medicine
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