It's really all about sex

Because women are just vessels for carrying babies to term. That is all. Why on earth should they have an ability to deny the mighty sperm?

Melissa McEwan of Shakesville:

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.

If there were ever any question about whether the movement behind this ban is “pro-life” or really just “anti-woman,” consider that carrying a terminally ill fetus to term increases a woman’s chances of placental abruption and uterine rupture; if she can even become pregnant again, future pregnancies carry greater risks for both her and the fetus. (And that’s to say nothing of her psychological well-being.)

Does any of that sound like these “pro-lifers” give a diddly shit about healthy women and healthy babies? Of course not. Because it’s not about healthy women and healthy babies; it’s about control.

Think Progress:

In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court today upheld a nationwide ban on “partial birth” abortion. The nation’s leading group of professionals providing health care for women, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, opposes this law because the banned procedure is often the best option for women. Yet the majority — Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito — dismiss the medical community’s opinion and instead adopt political rhetoric intended to appeal to the right-wing base.

Via Steve Bates at The Yellow Doggerel Democrat:

A Sharp Reversal: Commentary from the Center for Reproductive Rights

Posted by Jason Harrow at 06:17 PM

The following commentary is by Bonnie Scott Jones, a senior attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights.

In a stunning sacrifice of women’s health and physician judgment, the majority has held that where differences of opinion exist in the medical community, politicians may decide what doctors should do. This decision gives legislatures sweeping reign in the abortion context because there will always be differences of opinion among experts and practitioners about how best to protect the health of women seeking abortions. Indeed, given the nature of science, the diverse religious and moral views held by Americans, and the ease of creating and publishing (junk) science, those differences are inevitable on any issue intertwining medicine and morality. Accordingly, the decision opens the door for legislatures to dictate medical treatment in virtually any area of medical practice. By holding that legislatures are free to regulate whenever such differences of opinion exist, the Court has left Americans with politicians rather than doctors making medical decisions for them. The health costs of that holding today fall upon the one-third of American women who will obtain abortions in their lifetime.

Ruth Ginsburg's dissent:

Ginsburg, in a lengthy statement, said "the Court's opinion 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. For the first time since Roe, the Court blesses a prohibition with no exception protecting a woman's health." She said the federal ban "and the Court's defense of it cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to chip away at a right declared again and again by this Court -- and with increasing comprehension of its centrality to women's lives. A decision of the character the Court makes today should not have staying power."

That final comment, concluding angry remarks that were delivered without an open display of emotion, clearly was a suggestion that the ruling might not survive new appointments to the Court -- just as the arrival of Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., and, especially, Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. -- had led to the switch she claimed had come about this time. Ginsburg pointedly noted that the Court is "differently composed than it was when we last considered a restrictive abortion regulation" -- in Stenberg in 2000.

There mignt be a silver lining:

Today's 5-4 Supreme Court decision validating Congress' ban on so-called partial-birth abortions is obviously a setback for the reproductive rights of women, and a victory for those who want to roll them back. But the highly convoluted majority opinion, as reflected in the remarkably clear concurring and dissenting opinions, may make a broader attack on abortion rights harder in the long run, making the next appointment or two to the Court even more critical.

To make a long story short, the majority opinion (as brilliantly exposed in Justice Ginsburg's dissent) went to inordinate and irrational lengths to reconcile the decision with the Court's precedents, most obviously Stenberg (which struck down state "partial-birth" bans), Casey (which solidified a "health exception" to any permittable abortion restrictions), and Roe itself. Clearly the replacement of O'Conner by Alito made this result possible. But the failure of Alito and Roberts to join the concurring opinion by Thomas and Scalia calling for a reversal of all these precedents means that a further change in the Court will probably be necessary to produce a more fundamental shift in the constitutional law of abortion rights. And that's one of many reasons why Democrats need to win the presidency in 2008.

Kathy at Shakesville has more of the really infuriating details.

Soon we will have midwives being burned as witches and women being reminded that it was God's curse on women that they must suffer and travail in childbirth, obviously in punishment for the apple in the Garden of Eden.

Back to the Dark Ages!

Update: Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns and Money provides an overview.

And Maha at Mahablog explains to the confused the difference between late term and viable.