Boston—May I remind you what else was happening on the very day in 2003 when Congress passed the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban. In Florida, the Legislature passed a law that gave politicians the power to override Terri Schiavo’s wishes and have her feeding tube reinserted.
Up and down the East Coast, under two Bush administrations—George and Jeb—politicians were playing doctor and God and patient, trumping both medical opinion and individual rights.
May I also remind you of the day President Bush signed the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban into law. The photo op had him surrounded by an all-male chorus line of legislators. These men were proudly governing something they never had: a womb.
What a long and wounding debate this has been. The moment this procedure was dubbed “partial-birth abortion,” pro-lifers won the PR war. They took women out of the picture, literally. The line drawings that illustrated congressional hearings often showed a headless woman bearing a perfect, healthy baby of six months’ or more gestation.
Their words not only described a procedure that was indeed gruesome, they portrayed these invisible women as amoral—women who choose abortion to fit into a prom dress.
When President Clinton vetoed the ban, he surrounded himself with women who had been through pregnancies that came with an awful vocabulary: words such as hydrocephalus and polyhydramnios. Those women and their “prom dates”—obstetricians and gynecologists—asked for only one exception to the ban. They wanted an exception for serious health risks.
Indeed in 2000, the Supreme Court struck down a Nebraska law by 5-4 because it didn’t have such a health exception. The court called it an “undue burden” on a woman’s right to abortion. Nevertheless, in 2003, with the boldness of a party that controlled two branches of government and was making a bid for the third, Congress passed the law directly confronting that ruling.
Now women are again among the “disappeared.” On Wednesday, a new Supreme Court upheld the ban, also by 5-4, proving what a difference the turnover in a justice or two can make.
For many years, Sandra Day O’Connor had kept an uneasy peace in the court and maybe the country. She upheld Roe v. Wade while allowing states to regulate abortion as long as they didn’t place an “undue burden” on a woman’s right to decide.
In many ways, the first justice who had ever been pregnant defined which burdens were “undue.” She said it was an undue burden to ban any procedure without a health exception. She said that if there was any disagreement among doctors about safety, it was to be decided in favor of the woman’s health.
But the new court majority has decided something quite different. In an opinion tortured by an attempt to deny what he was doing—overturning a precedent—Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote that since only a small minority of women seeking abortions would be affected and since there was another possible procedure, the ban was constitutional.
Writing for the majority, Kennedy said it was fine for the politicians to make medical decisions, fine to eliminate health exceptions, fine to overturn precedent. He even pretended to leave the door ajar for individual suits by women in the midst of a pregnancy crisis. From where? Her hospital bed, or perhaps her gurney?
Let me remind you of something else. When Samuel Alito was a Justice wannabe to replace O’Connor, he reassured lawmakers he’d respect precedent on abortion. When John Roberts talked about his reverence for both precedence and the court, he said he got a “lump in my throat whenever I walked up those marble steps.” That lump in his throat is now a chill up my spine.
As Nancy Northup of the Center for Reproductive Rights said, “It took just a year for this new court to overturn three decades of established law.”
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg did more than hint at the loss of O’Connor in her blistering opinion for the now-minority. The court, she noted, is “differently composed” now.
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,” Ginsburg wrote. “The court’s defense of it (the ban) cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to chip away at a right declared again and again by this court.”
How many times must it be said that those who support a woman’s right to decide want abortion to be safe, legal and rare? As of today, women whose pregnancies come with alarming words and dangerous diagnoses live in a world that is a little less legal and a lot less safe.
Ellen Goodman’s e-mail address is ellengoodman(at symbol)globe.com.
© 2007, Washington Post Writers Group
WFT?!?!? That’s all I can say to this ridiculous ruling and particularly to all the Democrats who affirmed Roberts and Alito. How many times will they believe all this BS about “respecting precedent” and all the other crap from people put forward by the Liar-in-Chief?? Those on the far right have no shame lying through their teeth to the rest of us to get into the positions of power - why do those we elected to represent US refuse to see this?!?!
My favorite part of the opinion is the paternalistic way in which Kennedy hopes to protect all us dumb slutty women from ourselves - thanks Tony, we so appreciate a reversal of time to the fifties and of course we couldn’t make these decisions by ourselves, we need brave strong men like you to do it.
The damage brought upon our culture and our world in the last thirty-five years by the far right policies spawned in Washington are truly biblical in porportion. Speaking of which, it would be impossible to have accomplished so much evil without the tawdry cover of religiosity and an obedient media in lockstep with their corporate brethren.
The only question in my mind is when and how will it end? Totalitarianism? Fascism? Armed revolution? Twenty five more years of this Supreme Court could bring calamity that is almost unthinkable.
fd32, In the early years of the US the supreme court was an ineffectual, weak branch of government to which few wanted to belong. Maybe it could happen again.
The alternative after the first 3 months is a caesarian section–painful and too costly for those without insurance, assuming insurance will cover it as an abortion.
There are five Roman Catholic justices on the Supreme Court, two of whom are members of Opus Dei (Scalia & Thomas). They are imposing their religious beliefs on the rest of us. This was predictable when Roberts and Alito lied to get on the court, as did Scalia and Thomas and Kennedy previously. It was ridiculous to allow any of them to get on the court, because they all had an obnoxious record at the time of confirmation. An RC with a good record would have been different. No Democrat wanted to mention that five RC members of the court was not representative of the US public, but they took PC too far, and many women will pay dearly for that error.
Because the abduction of our government and the inversion of the checks and balances is such a new and unprecedented phenomenon, how to right the wrongs is indeed the great challenge. I would hope that the Supreme Court could be held to account for its violating the public will (how often do courts realize the jury had it right, if the judge tries to pre-empt them?) in putting this interloper into office. Then all that has occured since has a shot at being nullified. Otherwise, given the current debacle as per the 8 attorneys fired, the desire on the part of these authoritarians to place into office Matrix-like Mr. Smith clones who think, act and talk alike… and expecting ALL to fit their narrow notions of human expression is a Sci-fi nightmare IN THE MAKING. Imagine 1000 Kenneth Starrs, their “letter of the law” applications antithetical both to their proclaimed master, Jesus, AND the very heart of democracy, which is a marriage of many types, a community of diverse rather than one-size-fits-all interests! Heaven help us!
Yes, armybrat, it is uncivilized. The old axiom, two wrongs don’t make a right still holds true, and trying to justify it with comparisons doesn’t cut it. Nor does blaming abused women for their helpless behavior.
Better to look at the sources of our problems. Corporate control of our economy has diverted our resources from the public benefit to corporate welfare. We need to invest in public health, low income housing, education, infrastructure, OUR CHILDREN, instead of gorging the appetite of the military-industrial complex. We need to address roots of violence in this country, including early intervention for schoolyard bullying (which creates Kip Kinkles and Cho Seung-Huis). We need to identify children with symptoms of serious problems and help them. These children send messages, and we ignore or punish them instead of helping them.
I think we are one of the most uninformed citizenry in the world. And one of the most apathetic. The people in this discussion group know what’s going on, but out there, they are clueless. Most people have never even heard of Blackwater. Sure we have a free press, it just doesn’t want to talk about anything the powers don’t want it to talk about. By the time Americans wake up to the fact they’ve lost their freedom, they won’t even know what freedom is.
Maybe the right-to-lifers should take that really radical step and consider lobbying for legislation that will make a fetus a “human”. The science and technology are already there as dates of conception can be readily determined. (uh-oh, that might be a problem for them). Of course, one major change would be the abolishment of “Date of Birth” It would no longer be acceptable because it would change to “Date of Conception”.
The technology is also there to determine the gender of the “human” so that a “Certificate” could be issued to document the name and date of conception. And the parents? An immediate tax deduction at conception.
Good-bye birthday parties..Hello conception parties!
So..write your legislator today and ask him/her to introduce a bill to make a fetus a “human”. And while you’re writing so proficiently, ask him/her to introduce a second bill that will require men to use Viagra only when they want to make a “human”.
Do you rule out burning witches? 700 club Televangelists rant about lesbians, feminists and witches… they gotta keep THEIR women home and obedient, little wonder why so many of those churchy gals have blown up to 400 pounds and counting. Nothing like all those fund raiser bake sales! Plug up that sex chakra and humans become balloons…
The problem many of you are failing to address is that there’s plenty of empirical evidence available now suggesting that abortion in any of its forms creates immense emotional and psychological problems for women. That a conspiracy of silence has shrouded this discussion including even the reluctance of therapists to raise this as a question when addressing their clients - not to mention the shrill rhetoric - on all sides mind you - has prevented thoughtful and calm discussion from taking place has not helped on iota. While I’m very, very sympathetic to the plight of women who become pregnant and for whatever reason are unable to carry the fetus to term, unless we find real alternatives beyond abortion then we will continue to jepoardize the lives of our women and families.
I’ll be the first to affirm that there are some Super Women out there that I’d like to see in Congress or the White House, but Hillary isn’t one of them. Condoleeza isn’t one either. Focussing on gender ignores the real struggle we face in the U.S. and world today– the class war, started by the rich, rarely even believed by the poor, but very real.
Amybrat, your rhetoric is hateful and divisive. If you want to build a real coalition, stop chanting “Go, Nads, Go!” It just makes men who might otherwise be allies in the real fight, want to get as far away as possible.
There are three kinds of women out there - the religious right to lifers, the women who’ve lived their whole lives with abortion as the norm, and those of my generation who lived during the time when women didn’t have any say about their bodies, or much else. The law then said that if she was of childbearing age, in good health, and another pregnancy wouldn’t endanger her life - tough. She’d just have to keep having babies, unless she had a sympathetic doctor willing to put his name on the line saying her life would be endangered.
There are a whole lot of women in the middle category, and until they get a taste of what it feels like to have that kind of control exercised on them, they aren’t going to do anything.
Most women doen’t even know that in the not all that distant past, women weren’t even allowed to be head of house, keeping property, and being in charge of their children if their husbands died. All they were allowed was their personal property, like their hair brush and mirror and clothing. Many eldest children past childhood age were given title to the property, and in charge of his siblings, and his mother too for that matter. If no children were old enough, a single male relative stepped in and married the woman and got it all.
This is the direction women of today are being herded back to, and most haven’t a clue. It might be high time for women to start coming together seriously.
Apart from the disgusting paternalism of this decision, such as “Justice” Kennedy’s assertion that women are not really capable of making informed decisions without the court’s help, is anyone not equally disgusted at the timing of the decision, coinciding as it does with the Gonzalez hearings? Great way to overshadow the hearings in the media and to resucitate the right wing support base at the same time.
My guess is that Der Bushenfuehrer must be plenty worried about the hearings, since they offer the most direct evidence of White House connections to these obviously politically-motivated firings as well as the “missing” e-mails cover-up effort.
The Biblical/Christian stance ought to be one of stewardship, that’s something that gets ovelooked in this debate. Every action that sentient beings perform is a matter of stewardship, of determining what one does with the life-situation one has on his/her hands. All humans are stewards (i.e. managers) of what has been given them. When a woman becomes pregnant, she has an obligation before God and the universe to care for the fetus within her. If she learns that the fetus is abnormal she has the responsibility along with her doctor(s), of deciding whether or not to carry that fetus to term. What the matority of the Supreme Court has done is not to uphold a rational Christian view, but to subvert it. Don’t equate the cult of life with Christian faith.
Somebody should’ve gotten the Bush twins pregnant when they were 16. No one should have to right to tell a woman what to do with her uterus. No one!!! This is just another step towards totalitarianism.
For really amazing essays and posts check out the site that led me to common dreams. http://thumbjig.blogspot.com
Now let’s push to have the fetus declared a dependent from conception rather than birth thus an eligible tax deduction…-
I think that a lot of people on the Right just want women to be baby machines. That’s why they are against abortion and for teaching abstinence, which they know doesn’t prevent unplanned pregnancies.
“Well where the hell were all these women in the last 30 years? Why didn’t they vote in the last election, or the one before that, or the one before that -ad nauseum? Oh, that’s right - they don’t get involved in politics. Or else they’re religious nuts who cower according to the barabaric indoctrination and browbeating they suffer as children - talk about domestic violence and child abuse! Oh, hey, but that’s okay in the US of A - brainwashing is legal, either if you belong to a cult or join the military - or watch TV. The latter two are voluntary, and don’t seem to be in any danger of folding their tents.
So whose fault is it that men are running this country? There are more women than men - they’re just a bunch of cowards too. Easier to complain and whine than actually do anything about their circumstances. Even NOW is backing that freaky witch Billary-Hillary - whatever her name is now - it WAS Rodham. Talk about a real slut - what kind of woman lives with a creep like Bill Clinton? Sleazy, warmonagering, self-serving bigot who should be serving time for war crimes, just like the rest of the criminals in US government.
Women deserve what they get because they hide in corners instead of demaning rights. They don’t do what is necessary to secure their rights - it’s not as if freedom is free, as Americans are starting to find out. And all the peace-nik crap is just that - more BS. Hilter would get a kick out of peace rallies and protests - what a threat!”
I think that part of the problem is that women in America are just as distracted as men are. Not all women are feminists either. Even among young, educated women, you see a disdain for feminism. I started a thread recently on a dating site about whether women consider themselves feminists or not, and I was shocked to hear so many women say “Hell no!!!” as if I was asking them whether or not they practice cannibalism. Too many women imo have given up. They figure it’s easier to just be cute and find a man to lead the way and handle everything. It’s sad.
TWebb, Abortion is not an easy choice, and comes with consequences. But that’s no reason to outlaw it. That must be each woman’s decision. She must decide what she needs to do, not some man who has nothing to do with her life.
It’s very paternalistic to essentially tell women you know better than we what’s in our best interest. We are not simpleminded creatures who need our decisions made for us.
The canard that most women who have abortions suffer horrific emotional consequences is exactly that: a canard.
It has been refuted, repeatedly, by reputable scholars.
It is the David Reardons of this world who keep professing to have ‘established’ that abortion has a high incidence of extreme emotional distress as a sequel. But no one has ever used the word ‘reputable’ in describing Reardon’s ’scholarship.’
iwarrior: Yep I’ve been around the last 30 years and I consider myself a feminist. I’ve voted and been involved in women’s issues and men’s as well. I’m damn glad the morning after pill was finally made available for women raped, or the condom split, or what have you, and over the Counter. I’m sure the drug manufacturer is pleased, for most women’s products are way over priced like tampons, ect.
I guess I agree with TWebb and disagree with worddancer. I for one had an illegal abortion and it took me 10 years to forgive myself. Being raised Catholic, didn’t help and on top of that it was a priest who told me where to go.
You all miss the point. A much bigger point. And that is that most Republicans want to keep the right to choose abortion as a legal option. All of this talk about banning abortion is just a bunch of political crap. The Republicans have no intention of changing the right to choose. They really don’t care about it that much. It makes great campaign fodder, but lousy policy. They might make a big issue and wave their hands about “partial birth abortion”, but they know that is a meaningless thing. What they will never do is ban abortion in total.
Mark my words Ellen Goodman. The single greatest thing that will preserve a woman’s right to choose will be Republican women.
All the women I know who have had abortions were glad to have the option. While there was regret that it did not work out, I know of no one who had an abortion who suffered any consequences or health problems. Neither did they go about it capriciously. you want to see health problems? If abortion is impossible to get legally and safely, you will have a lot more deaths of women.
While I love most babies more than most adults, I still look on tiny embryos as potential humans. When you come down so HARD against a real, live woman vs. a potential human, you give no value to a real person- you see her only as a vessel. How about abortion being safe, available, and very rare? How about honoring the spirit of the fetus and asking the spirit to return when the time is right?
Don’t those good old boys have any ability to see women as equals, with equal brains, dreams, futures? If God is omnipotent, how could we see him only as a Big human? why do we see God as a male? Does God have a penis? Perhaps this is why women don’t seem to have a legal say over their bodies… Men just take for granted God is another guy and the guys rule. How limited is thy thinking!
TWebb April 19th, 2007 6:49 pm
“The problem many of you are failing to address is that there’s plenty of empirical evidence available now suggesting that abortion in any of its forms creates immense emotional and psychological problems for women.”
There is also evidence suggesting that women (and men) who “freely choose” to sign-up for military missions that engage them in ending lives prematurely, creates emotional and psychological problems as well.
A conspiracy of silence has also shrouded this discussion, yet women are still “free to choose” to end the lives of fully developed beings.
This Supreme Court decision will only affect poor women who can’t afford to leave the country for an abortion. This country needs poor women to have children that will most likely “be left behind” and eventually sign-up for the military. Our society needs these people to pursue a sick global military agenda without having to implement the draft.
Let’s have a national vote by only women since men should not govern what affects women. Are any of these people who would force a woman to complete a pregnancy be willing to contribute to the education, clothing, feeding, housing, or any other needs to bring this child to become a mature, productive law abiding citizen?
It occurred to me, as I was reading the Harpers article for background on the Supreme Court decision, that the procedure under discussion sounds an awful lot like the procedure the Santorums called a “miscarriage”! Remember that, when the dead fetus ended up at home, swaddled, and was shown to the kids? (Doctors say in some cases this helps)
It sounds like the Santorums “miscarriage” involved an “intact dilation and extraction” else how do you get the dead fetus past the closed cervix in one piece?
Abortion is an issue for women only.
The deluded persons who fall for the claim “God sez!”, are victims of a third party hustle being worked on them by others who know that all gods are mute.
I’m surprised that Mr. Alec Baldwin hasn’t weighted in on this subject yet. His deep committment to both Progressive Thought and Buddism as well as his uncanny sense of doing what’s right has certainly given him the right to be a spokesperson for this, and other progressive causes!
www.tmz.com
Perhaps he should take up the mantle of spokesman for Progressive Parenting Alliance. He certainly knows how to really boost a young girl’s self image, doesn’t he?
What a proud spokesman he is. I’m touched, really I am.
what happens after birth belies the true intentions of the anti-abortionists. They are supposedly all concerned about the life of the fetus, it’s right to live. Once it has passed through the birth canal though it’s on it’s own. Once born there is no right to proper nutrition, to affordable housing, to proper child care, health care or pre-school (and to be honest a decent education anymore) The aristocracy has always understood this, keeping the peasants barefoot, pregnant and ignorant ensures that there will always be more peasants to exploit for whatever purpose necessary, cheap labor, canon fodder, guinea pigs whatever. The day they start lining up to adopt these unwanted pregnancies and raise them as their own I’ll start believing they are truly concerned about the life of the fetus, I wont be holding my breath!
GREENMAN !
Bulleye !
Republicans (especially the disgusting Falwell-Robertson-Buchannon christians) are so concerned that a mother carry a child to term………
and then they work against all possibilities for a better life for that child at every turn
…..pro-corporation…anti-union…anti-freedom….anti-tolerance…anti-Constitution…anti-American, slime
Absolutely, greenman! These so-called right to lifers don’t care about our children once they’re born, any more than they care about the children of Iraq who have been killed by U.S. bombs or born with horrible deformities due to contamination from depleted uranium left by U.S. troops. I can’t believe that this outrageous hypocrisy is never recognized. When children in this country are born into poverty, what happens after they become young adults? Will the right wing care for them then? Duh, I doubt it. There will be no jobs for them, other than soldier, which is the whole point. Children born into poverty end up in the military, providing cannon fodder for the next 100 years of war, if the world lasts that long. This supreme court ruling is just one one ruling class tool to keep women down, and through them, all of us. Feminist as I am, I won’t vote for Hillary. She is a major disappointment, and she will betray women when it suits her political aspirations.
Thankfully, I’m no longer fertile. If I were at risk of a government takeover of my uterus, I’d be taking a course in reproductive anatomy or stocking up on wire coathangers. Healthy (disease free) white (caucasian) teenaged (very fertile) girls - listen up, your womb could be next! Parents of healthy white teens: Listen up, Bush&Co have plans for your grand babies - “Infant-Adoption Awareness Programs” catering to the infertiles / subfecund mommy-wannabes and rich self-centered ’stars’ who want zero stretchmarks and non-stretched vaginas.
Folks,
Many of you rightfully decry a conservative, protect life in the womb, but “you’re on your own” after birth mentality.
But many of us who are interested in reducing the need for abortion belong to organizations like Democrats for Life of America (dfla.org) and the Consistent Life Network (www.consistent-life.org) who oppose abortion, racism, economic injustice, the death penalty and war.
Members of these organizations recognize individuals’ but see individuals as inextricably connected and in need of mutual support to promote and advocate for life in all its forms.
Thank you, TWebb.
Add to that Feminists for Life of America www.feministforlife.org
whose officers are criss-crossing the country asking people to come together and see that resources, such as low cost or no cost pre-natal care, student insurance coverage, and college housing, are available to young college women who are unexpectedly pregnant. I earnestly believe that NO WOMAN facing an unplanned pregnancy really WANTS an abortion, but often she feels she has no other choice. This belief is not meant to be disrespectful of the women getting abortions, but rather a indictment of a society that promotes sex with T and A every two minutes on television, refuses to talk about responsibility and the consistent, careful use of birth control, and then leaves a woman on her own if she “gets caught.” Both sides can come together and help these women, and we need to do that rather than screaming and fussing with one another.
Sorry, that’s www.feministsforlife.org