The Beginning of the End
Yes, this is really that bad. So much for judicial minimalism.
I urge people to read the actual opinion linked above. For a variety of reasons (the most obvious being the validity of Roe v. Wade), this could be the most important case in the last 30 years. A case that marks a serious jurisprudential shift in the Court.
April 18th, 2007 22:30
Holy shit, did the Supreme Court just declare war on women’s bodies?
(from Ginsburg’s dissenting opinion):
“Today’s decision is alarming. It refuses to take Casey
and Stenberg seriously. It 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 (ACOG). It
blurs the line, firmly drawn in Casey, between previability
and postviability abortions. And, for the first time since
Roe, the Court blesses a prohibition with no exception
safeguarding a woman’s health.”
They have gone too far. They have disrespected the authority of the medical profession, of their own legal profession, and of women’s rights to protect their bodies.
Donate to Planned Parenthood/ to help them mobilize against “the Supreme Court’s reckless decision to uphold the federal abortion ban — a ban that tells women that politicians, not doctors, will make their health care decisions for them.”
April 19th, 2007 00:05
Yeah this one is unbelievable. When they say “activist judges” they mean judges that think women should have the same rights as anyone else.
April 19th, 2007 07:33
The Times article is pretty interesting. Marty Lederman of Balkanization is quoted saying the Kennedy opinion was basically an attack on Ginsburg’s entire life work (Ginsburg was an ACLU lawyer who argued and won some of the most important women’s rights cases in the 70s). Apparently, Ginsburg was visibly upset and angry when she read her dissent in the Court. Which was a very rare show of emotion from her.
Perhaps the only good thing that could come from this is it will force Roberts to show his stripes. His goal was to increase the uniformity of the Court through narrow decisions and basically turn the court into a court of appeals as opposed to a supreme arbiter of the law. Of course, this opinion has shattered any possibility of unanimity. Like Bush v. Gore, I don’t think the wounds will heal fast. And we might see a more polarized and political court in the near future. Roberts could respond to this by realizing he overstepped his bounds. Or he could say fuck it, and go all out Scalia/Thomas style and destroy every existing liberal precedent out there.