Earlier today, the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, "said the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act that Congress passed and President Bush signed into law in 2003 does not violate a woman's constitutional right to an abortion" (Sherman, 2007). This is the first major victory for pro-lifers since the Supreme Court upheld a woman's right to have an abortion in 1973 (Sherman, 2007).
According to Justice Kennedy, who voted with the majority, "the law is constitutional despite not containing an exception that would allow the procedure if needed to preserve a woman's health" (Sherman, 2007). Joining Kennedy in the majority were Chief Justice John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia.
Since the 2003 signing of the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act, six federal courts have deemed the law a violation of a woman's constitutional rights. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in her dissent said that the ruling refused to take seriously previous Supreme Court rulings in regards to abortion (Sherman, 2007). Ginsburg went on to say that, "the court blesses a prohibition with no exception safeguarding a woman's health" (Sherman, 2007).
I'm not sure how I feel about this one to be honest. Partial birth abortions are nasty things, but at the same time, I can see that sometimes they might be necessary in order to preserve the life of the mother. So... I'm at a stalemate with myself I suppose. While I have no objections to banning the procedure, I guess I would be more comfortable with that ban if an exception was put in place for those circumstances in which a mother's life is in danger and a partial birth abortion becomes necessary.
Either way, I can see all kinds of hell flying from this decision. If anything, I foresee this decision only adding fuel to the abortion fire... I shudder to think what the next several months are going to be like as states scramble to take advantage of this ruling.
Reference:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070418/ap_on_go_su_co/scotus_abortion
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I agree, thats a tough call. Partial birth abortions mean killing the child, banning them means death for the mother (in those emergency medical circumstances--the only ones i would ever consider a partial birth abortion for anyways)
Seriously makes you second guess having a child. if theres complications in birth, youre fucking screwed.
Hug a musician, they never get to dance.
I was under the impression that partial birth abortions were actually more life threatening to the mother than another procedure (say, C-section). The way I understood it (and I don't have references or data to back up my understanding) is that partial birth abortions actually induce the mother to breach (so the head doesn't come out first... the legs do), and it's more difficult on the mother's body that way.
~C
Visit my blog.
Despite my affinity for killing babies, I don't see any necessity for partial birth abortions. Obviously, I'm no medical doctor, but I don't see how a partial birth abortion could save a mother's life...
--Mike
From what I understand about the procedure is that partial birth abortions is used in lieu of other late term abortion procedures because it alleviates the need for abdominal surgery (which may not be possible for all women) as well as in instances in which the fetus has hydrocephalus and cannot pass through the cervix because the head is too big and this type of abortion is safest for the mother in those instances. Obviously, not all late term partial birth abortions would fall into those or similar categories... but to not allow an exception in those instances just doesn't make sense to me. Outside of circumstances such as those, I can agree with you that I see no need for partial birth abortion.
"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored." -Huxley
"It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err." -Gandhi
I guess this is what happens when you have people who aren't experts in a field legislating on the field...
--Mike
I have had to think about this for a while, so I know this response took a while in coming, but like you I was a little torn.
I think rather than just outright banning it or outright legalizing it, instead they should have put a clause in there where it was reviewed as a case-by-case situation.
Doctors' jobs is to protect their patients and decide (or help them decide) on the best course of action.
Now, that late into the pregnancy (barring any unforeseen complications), the child has a very large chance of surviving outside of the womb and can be delivered, thus it deserves to be protected under our laws. However, I think in cases where the mother's life is in danger, the doctor(s) should go for whomever has the best chance of survival.
This may sound a little cold, but they should calculate it: "if I abort the baby, the mother has a XX% chance of living, but if I deliver the baby, the baby would have a XX% chance of living" and use that to decide what to do. If the baby's odds are better, then I surely hope he or she would have a very strong father. Regardless, I think they should have consent before doing any thing.
My reason behind my decision on this issue is that I think I would rather see a healthy mother or a healthy baby rather than seeing the chance that both may die by forcing delivery. I think logically if the mother's life is in danger to that point where delivery will kill her, then reasonably in most cases the baby's life would be in danger as well. I wouldn't want to take the chance of them both dying because the law says that they cannot abort to save the mother's life.
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"Dream as though you'll live forever, but live as though there's no tomorrow" --James Dean
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/fanaile-essence
I agree with you. The problem, for me, with late term abortions, are that these are late term abortions and these babies can survive, with medical intervention at roughly 23 weeks and as you said, since there is a chance of survival (compared to say an abortion at week 12 when there is absolutely no chance of survival whatsoever), the law should protect the child. But, should the law protect the child at the expense of the mother? That's where it gets more difficult for me.
Your idea doesn't sound so cold as you think. Doctors have to make tough decisions all the time and sometimes those decisions mean weighing the odds of who has the best chance of survival before deciding who to save. It might not seem fair to some, but I definitely wouldn't say it is cold to do so.
"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored." -Huxley
"It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err." -Gandhi
The survival of a fetus at 23 weeks is still very slim (ranging from less than 1% to about 30% depending on who you ask). But, this decision doesn't in any way prevent the abortion of a fetus at 23 weeks. What it does is single out the safest (for the mother) procedure and make it illegal. These fetuses will still be aborted, but because less safe and effective procedures have to be used, there will be a greater chance of complication and death for the mothers. In fact, this decision will increase rather than decrease the number of abortion-realted deaths overall.
What makes this decision so dramatic, is the about 180 degree turn that it makes regarding the arbitrary prohibition of medical procedures. All of the precedented decisions in similar cases have always required an allowance for medical necessity to protect the health of the patient.
This decision was transparently political. After all, both Alito and Roberts were chosen by the President specifically for their conservative religious stances on abortion issues. But this is a decision they are going to regret, and in my opinion eventually reverse (or rather re-reverse). The decision invalidates literally dozens of previous decisions, and it won't be long before all of the situations covered in that rather significant body of precent begin to resurface and make their way through the Courts again.
The decision was pointless, political, arbitrary and vindictive. The next few years are going to be extremely tubulent as the Court tries to find a way to reconcile this decision with the overwhelming number of precedents that it invalidates.
percivale
Agreed. I know the survival rate at 23 weeks isn't great, but there is still a survival rate is what I was getting at. And I didn't mean just partial birth abortions, but you are right. This was political and most certainly arbitrary.
"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored." -Huxley
"It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err." -Gandhi
>This decision was transparently political. After all, both Alito and Roberts were chosen by the President specifically for their conservative religious stances on abortion issues.
No it wasn't. First of all, Anthony Kennedy is really the only justice whose opinion matters, because, with O'Conner gone, he is the only swing vote. Now it is true that replacing a moderate with a conservative changed the balance, changing the liberal-moderate-conservative ratio of the Court from 4-2-3 to 4-1-4, but Bush didn't appoint Kennedy so if you're attacking Bush for evening out the court (though I would prefer 9 moderates on the Supreme Court because personal views should play no role in Court decisions), then that's pretty unfair. Now I do have to say that a judge being a "liberal', "conservative", or "moderate" judge is not the same thing as a politician with those labels. For example, Scalia is the most conservative judge, but he voted to strike down the Texas law banning Flag burning in Johnson v Texas because it's a violation of the First Amendment. A conservative judge does not provide any further interpretations of the Constitution, but does not allow any exceptions for laws that violate it. Furthermore, you say it was a politically motivated decision, what conservatives refer to as "judicial activism". But all the court is saying is that there is no right to partial-birth abortion in the Constitution. Can you rationally disagree with that decision? Do you see a right to partial-birth abortion in the Constitution? There in fact is no right to abortion in the Constitution, at least not as Roe v. Wade defined it. They were right to overturn the Texas law in the case, as with the penalties it dished out to doctors performing abortions and the burden of proof they placed on whether or not a pregnancy could kill a woman were so great that it effectively denied a woman her right to life and health. But there was nothing wrong with the Supreme Court's decision on the partial-birth abortion ban, save the fact that it didn't allow exception for the mother's life. Also, the court has the right to reverse precedents if it sees the precedents as wrong.
>since the Supreme Court upheld a woman's right to have an abortion in 1973
I thought this article was going to be really against the decision so I was gonna "serve you" but it's not. I still have to say though that the Supreme Court did not uphold a woman's right to have an abortion in Roe v. Wade. Had someone challenged legal abortions in California, and the Supreme Court ruled in favor of California, that would be upholding. But the case was against a law banning it, so they struck down the law, as opposed to upholding it.