I've heard some Democrats say that Bush only uses the social conservative issues to rile the base, but not ever really wanting to repeal Roe v. Wade. That is nonsense and Bush's new Supreme Court affirmed it this morning. In a 5-4 decision, the 2003 Partial-Birth Abortion Act was upheld in Gonzales v. Carhart reversed a ruling made in 2000 that denied a similar bill to be constitutional.
This is a very sad day for those that believe in the right for a woman to choose. Although Roe v. Wade was not specifically overturned, this marks a turning point for the Court in how it views the question of abortion rights. The decision is the first time abortion rights were restricted in the 34 years since the landmark Roe ruling.
The dissenters, led by Ruth Bader Ginsberg, were extremely unhappy:
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, speaking out in the courtroom for the dissenters, called the ruling "an alarming decision" that refuses "to take seriously" the Court's 1992 decisions reaffirming most of Roe v. Wade and its 2000 decision in Stenberg v. Carhart striking down a state partial-birth abortion law.
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 remarks delivered matter-of-factly, 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 imposed that it was when we last considered a restrictive abortion regulation" -- in Stenberg in 2000.
There is a reason conservatives have been so focused on the judicial system and replacing judges with faithful tools like Justice Roberts and Alito. If not for George Bush, this would not have happened. Yet there are consequences for our actions, and when GWB Jr got elected, we were in for a terrible time. 2009 can not come fast enough. I pray that the time lapses quickly without incidents like this, yet they seem to come all the time.
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