Infanticide now illegal in US

Good. Very good. I like Justice Kennedy's comment that the regular form of abortion--slicing and dicing--is arguably just as brutal.

"The Act is not invalid on its face where there is uncertainty over whether the barred procedure is ever necessary to preserve a woman's health, given the availability of other abortion procedures that are considered to be safe alternatives," Kennedy wrote. It's a win for conservatives. A small win, but a win. I'm wondering how many justices would have given a thumbs up for the law if there weren't any other safe abortion alternatives.

Is ~tv the same as god-is-in-the-tv?

Is ~tv the same as god-is-in-the-tv? Yeah - but my cookeies don't always save from work, and ~tv is shorter to key in ;)

1,400+ lives is a big deal.
The big win here, if you care to call it that, is that the legislative branch, charged with making law and answerable to an electorate, actually made this law, and that it was upheld by an unelected body of judges who are supposed to interpret law, not make it.

Starrs- Judicial activism= when the courts decide against you Judicial restraint= when the courts decide for you

1400+ babies saved (I wonder how many of those mothers will die as a result) justifies those means, Aaron, or didn't you get the talking points?

C. Everett Koop in the New York Times 9/26/06 'At first, abortion-rights activists claimed this procedure hardly ever took place. When pressed for figures, several pro-abortion groups came up with 500 a year, but later investigations revealed that in New Jersey alone 1,500 partial-birth abortions are performed each year. Obviously, the national annual figure is much higher." Why not go check your CDC stats for the number of deaths? Dear me, Aaron, you are in a tizzy, aren't you? Why not try a breath mint for all that bile?

Golly, Starrs, who do I trust, the CDC or an anti-choice former Reagan appointee?

Aaron - You're completely off. Judicial activism is going outside the laws on the books to enact your own policy preferences based on "emerging awareness" or "concepts of existence" instead of on the Constitution. See, e.g., Casey v Planned Parenthood or Lawrence v Texas. The Constitution doesn't have anything to say about abortion or sodomy, making those legitimate areas for legislatures to pass laws on as long as they don't violate other provisions of the Constitution. When the Supreme Court proclaimed (in essence) fundamental Constitutional rights to abortion and sodomy, that was unabashed judicial activism. Even people who support the results of these cases (and Roe, for example) have a hard time justifying them with reference to Constitutional law. That's a sign of judicial overreach. Judicial restraint means courts following the law and declining to strike down laws simply because they disagree with them or to create rights simply because they feel they should exist. TV, no mothers will die as a result of this. Here's the thing about partial birth abortion: the only reason it ever needs to be employed is if you specifically want to have a dead baby as the outcome. If a later-term baby is literally threatening its mother's life and the pregnancy needs to be ended, then why not deliver the baby all the way and at least try to save its life too? There can be no possible situation in which the mother's life requires the baby be partially delivered, then killed before its head emerges. Even if for some unimaginable reason that were the case to save the mother's life, there is no case in which it could ever be necessary to save the mother's "health" (= age, familial, psychological, emotional, etc., according to case law). Saving even a few babies that might have died this way is not a crazy right-winger cause, it's something most reasonable people believe was worth doing. The Constitutional point was that it was well within Congress's right to pass a law doing so.

Aaron - You're completely off. If some agenda driven stranger on an internet board says so it must be

http://slate.msn.com/id/2090201/

Abortion Surveillance by CDC report for 2000. Read the entire report. Puzzle through the technical references, many of them are not so difficult to figure out from context.

If some agenda driven stranger on an internet board says so it must be Well, that was a nice engagement with the arguments.

Perhaps you can explain exactly how it qualifies as 'activism.' Enlighten us please. I said it was restraint ;) I understand the semnatics game, don't worry my friend.

Well, that was a nice engagement with the arguments. Yes, yes, we get it. It's liberal judicial activism until the conservatives vote in enough of their ilk to appoint like-minded justices at which point it's called restraint. I get it Kimberly ;)

WW, Saletan's article doesn't work for me. (Unsurprisingly.) A large part of it seems to be based on the ideas that mid-term fetuses have a very low survival rate anyway - although it's probably gotten higher since he wrote that in 2003, showing the danger of relying on viability numbers as dispositive - so partial-birth abortion isn't really killing babies who would be born. But they could be; and if the object wasn't a dead baby, but rather saving a mother's life, then delivery could be completed with at least an attempt made to save the baby's life as well. The point for PBA advocates, though, is abortion rather than saving lives, so the argument that PBA is necessary to save lives isn't a good faith one.

Rod, before you get too misty-eyed about George W. Bush, keep in mind that if had been given his way, instead of Alito's vote, this decision would have hinged on the outcome of Harriet Miers's coin flip.

It's a sad day when it takes the highest courts in the nation to state what should be obvious: It not okay to jam scissors into the brain of a living, breathing, infant.

And arguably it's not okay to imprison women for having a medical procedure that could save her life.

cs: What's the moral difference between killing a baby with "limbs in motion", one who cannot move his limbs yet, or one without limbs at all? None are self aware.

Oh, Susuan, that's just nonsense. First of all, it would be the dctor facing chokey. Second, do you really a doctor would be prosecuted for saving a life? Third, even if it came to that, who would vote to convct? Finally, Justice Kennedy left the door wide open for the "saving the mother's life" challenge.

Right. I forgot with passage of this law Orwell's nightmare came to pass and we're now in North Korea. Pass the kimchee.

cs: Point taken. What I meant was that a being that all of us would recognize as being a baby no longer has the risk of having scissors jammed into its brain. Susan S: In no circumstance does a mother's life depend on delivering a dead child or killing her baby during delivery.

No longer does a premature baby have more rights than a full-term infant. No longer is a preemie a "baby" if her mother wants her, while a full-term infant is a non-person who can be killed at whim if her mother does not want her.

Susan, as I said above, mother's lives aren't threatened by banning this method of abortion. If the object isn't getting a dead baby, but rather is to save a mother's life, then delivery can be completed with at least an attempt made to save the baby's life as well. There's simply no circumstance in which a threat to a woman's life requiring ending the pregnancy by almost completely delivering the baby but then killing it before it's fully delivered. The point for partial birth abortion supporters is abortion - it's not about saving lives. Again, I just don't think you can legitimately have this concern.

"If the object isn't getting a dead baby, but rather is to save a mother's life, then delivery can be completed with at least an attempt made to save the baby's life as well. There's simply no circumstance in which a threat to a woman's life requiring ending the pregnancy by almost completely delivering the baby but then killing it before it's fully delivered." The Academy of OB-GYNs disgrees. I think I trust them more than the pro-life movement or Congress. Listen, I've long believed that these kinds of procedures should have been the place where the pro-choice movement should have conceded and given the pro-life crowd a win. If they had, there would be a life-of-the-mother exception. Unfortunately, that compromise didn't happen and this is what we are left with.

I'm pro-choice. This procedure is vile. Good riddance. If we could find a way to keep abortion two the first trimester, I think we would have a better moral argument than all-or-nothing.

I think the ACOG is saying that if you want an abortion, it may be safer to partially deliver the baby and kill it with scissors (Abortion Method A) than to dismember it piece by piece in the womb and pull out the pieces (Abortion Method B). That's different than saying partial birth abortion is ever necessary to save a woman's life. However, just use common sense here - no appeals to authority, no Congress, no doctors, no ideologues - just use common sense. If a mother's life is in danger and she's gone through medical dilation and partially delivered the baby, and you're just trying to save the mother's life, then there should be absolutely no need to kill the baby before it's delivered - just complete the delivery and do your best to save the baby as well, even if the chances are small. Why would anyone who needed to end a pregnancy to save her life not also want to give the baby even a small chance? Partial birth abortion can only be "necessary" when the object is abortion itself. What Congress did was say Abortion Method A is not allowable; what the Court said was Abortion Method A isn't required to be allowed by the Constitution. BTW, there actually is still a life-of-the-mother exception (as unlikely as it could be), but there is no health exception anymore.

Irenaeus, let's hope not. Miracles do happen. :-)

WW, we went through this before, but this was sarcasm, yes? If not, don't tell me. I don't want to know.

With the day I'm having, all I can say to wildwest is go pleasure yourself.
Beyond that, I would agree that no text -- including the constitution -- is self-interpreting. All interpreters approach the text with philosophies, goals, prejudices and blind spots. So I don't think a *strict constructionist* really exists; it's an ideal to be approached but probably never realized. That said, the idea that conservatives are ideologues twisting the constitution to their whims is asinine. You've got justices on the left arbitrarily drawing on foreign law *when and from where it suits them*; you've got them determining law on the basis of what they in the robes perceive as social goods; the leftist judiciary really does function as a second legislative branch in many cases.

I mean, if I'm on the court, and I want to draw on foreign law, I might just draw on Saudi Arabia's and Pakistan's laws on sexuality and Germany's law on Beer Purity (Reinheitsgebot), both of which I think would serve social goods in stopping the advance of homosexuality in American culture and stopping the tragedy of the drinking of bad beer. People, life is too short to drink anything less than Becks! Even if none of that has anything to do with the constitution, because I in my wisdom consider them intrinsic goods. Less sardonically, I would say that the courts should stay out of most things and let people debate it out in the papers, the pubs, the blogs, and enact laws through their representatives. Part of the reason abortion is so contentious in this country is the feeling on the part of pro-lifers that abortion as the "law of the land" was forced on us, and the nervousness of pro-choicers rests on the realization that what the court giveth, a later court can taketh away. Perhaps if we had gone through a truly democratic process on this issue, it wouldn't be so contentious. This seems to be the situation in Britain, as far as I understand.

...both of which I think would serve social goods in stopping the advance of homosexuality in American culture and stopping the tragedy of the drinking of bad beer. But is there a correlation? Has the increase in homosexuality been coupled (no pun intended) by a rise (no pun intended) in bad beer?

It sure is lonely out here in left field. I had no idea that all SC Jusices appointed by every President since FDR with the exception of Rhenquist, Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, and Alito were left-wing ideologues. I thought only a few even came close (Marshall, Douglas, Earl Warren perhaps). But Souter? Kennedy? Whoa!! Then again, I don't usually frequent righty boards. I shouldn't be surprised.

WW, read Kennedy's opinion in Lawrence - all that lofty language about defining your own concept of existence may be inspirational from a certain point of view, but it's completely unmoored from the Constitution.

WW, I think you overstated a bit. The rightie judges (to use your term) do, in my view, apply the law as written. That's their job, according to our Constitution. Too many leftie judges apply the law as they think it should have been written. This not only usurps the legislative function, but disenfranchises the voter. Part of the problem with Souter, Kennedy, O'Connor (ret.) is that they seem to go wherever the wind blows them. I know lots of lefties who hate how federal judges generally mix themselves up in cases they have no business deciding because it amounts to tyranny.
I don't want SCOTUS to ban abortions any more than I want it to legalize them. This should be up to the voters, who I think would keep abortion legal, but with less liberality (pardon the pun), including a ban on PBAs which so many people support.
Even if you are staunchly pro-choice, I really don't get all the "end justifies the means" stuff here - everyone should be pleased, at least, that government worked they way it was designed to. Okay, if you don't like the result, go back to Sens. Reid, Leahy, etc. now that they're the majority, and seek to have the law repealed. But don't insinuate that there's some dirty work here. There isn't.

If you're worried that a mother's life may require partially delivering her baby before killing it, be at peace. The law has a life-of-the-mother exception.

I had no idea that all SC Jusices appointed by every President since FDR with the exception of Rhenquist, Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, and Alito were left-wing ideologues. Not quite all have been left-wing ideologues (Frankfurter and White were both constitutional jurists). But frankly, yes, there is a deep corruption in the legal profession that dates back at least to O.W. Holmes and assumes that courts have the right to decide cases according to what ever outcome they personally think is "best" for society, rather than what the law requires. Every college student should be required to study Constitutional law. Read the Supreme Court's leading decisions in areas like abortion, church-state issues, racial preferences, death penalty, sodomy laws, etc. You will quickly discover for yourself that the emperor has no clothes. Aside from the dissents of Justices Scalia and Thomas, there have been virtually no consistent principles whatsoever guiding the courts. Lofty principles are cited to justify a particular result in one case, and then the exact opposite principle is cited to justified a particular preferred result in another case.
If most Americans understood how the Supreme Court operated, the Court's jurisdiction would have been statutorily restricted long ago. It is an institution firmly dedicated to the proposition that the People cannot be trusted to make their own laws.

How appalling that Justice Ginsburg considers abortion "central" to women's lives: In candor, the [Partial Birth Abortion] Act, 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.

Scott, the right Ginsburg was speaking about is the right for women to make their own medical decisions without state intervention, unless I'm reading it wrong. But there is no such thing as a constitutional right to make one's "own medical decisions," and not even the pro-abortion justices believe that there is. Such a right, in their view, extends only to abortion. Congress (including large majorities of both parties) has determined that Partial Birth Abortion is not a legitimate medical decision -- just as it's not a legitimate medical decision to take non-FDA approved drugs or to be euthanized.
When Justice Ginsberg writes an opinion that all FDA regulations are per se violations of the Constitutional rights of all Americans, I'll take her abortion argument more seriously. By the way, were you championing Rush Limbaugh's right to make his "own medical decisions" when he was busted for using illegal painkillers?

Actually it s not illegal. The case and this whole sub issue are all about aesthetics. Abortion at this stage is still legal, it is just illegal to perform the safer method.
Surprise! The SC is terrible at making medical decisions, who would have guessed. This was also the case in Roe, and pro-lifers were correct in pointing it out. Now the shoe is on the other foot. So how does judicial activism and Commerce Clause abuse feel?

Surprise! The SC is terrible at making medical decisions, who would have guessed. This was also the case in Roe, and pro-lifers were correct in pointing it out. Now the shoe is on the other foot. So how does judicial activism and Commerce Clause abuse feel? The Supreme Court hasn't made any "medical decisions," and no one in his right mind thinks this is a case of "judicial activism." The Surpreme Court has simply ruled here that a statute passed by Congress and signed by the President is not unconstitutional on its face (i.e., without it ever even having been applied).
Any other result would be a very extreme case of judicial activism. And the scary thing is that there are 4 justices willing to go to that extreme.

Simon Well we can argue about the meaning of judicial activism, a euphemism (that actually holds a lot of merit), but just to give one law passed by the Fed that is unconstitutional on its face: COPA. And it was rightfully struck down before having been applied. However this decision was, in fact, a medical decision. Late term abortions are still legal, they just can't look icky, even if the process that makes them icky is a safer procedure. If that is not a medical decision, I don't know what is.

What you're forgetting is that the decision -- that this particular kind of abortion should be a Federal crime -- was made by the United States Congress. (Including, by the way, the vote of Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid and with no opposition from grandstanding John Edwards.) I'd be willing to wager this is because of the *ick* factor and not because they're against the procedure. If it was *their* daughter or *their* wife that needed a late-term abortion, for some medical reason, they'd prefer it to be the safest method possible. Voters are fickle. "Don't ick 'em out or you're gonna lose the next election."