Good decision, bad law
By CrabCakes Posted in Life Issues — Comments (11) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Today the Supreme Court handed down a decision that, to my mind, was the proper one given the case put before them. The Court has spent enough time declaring acts of Congress unconstitutional, and this move was a breath of fresh air. Let Congress pass their laws, and let us vote them out if they make horrible laws. The law that was upheld today is precisely one of these horrible, but constitutional, laws.
A little background: The procedure banned by Congress and upheld today was intact dilation and extraction (abbreviated "intact D&E" in the ruling today). The process, as all of you know, involves delivering a fetus feet first, puncturing the base of the skull, and removing the fetus' brains. The procedure can only be used during the second or third trimester.
The most common alternative to this procedure is dilation and evacuation (abbreviated "standard D&E" in the ruling today), which involves the doctor inserting tools into the uterus and sweeping the baby out in 10-15 passes by ripping it into pieces for extraction. This procedure is obviously much more gruesome than the former, but it takes place inside the uterus rather than outside.
While the former procedure may sound more "icky" it is clearly the more humane of the two. So why ban the former, since it will obviously only lead to an increase in the latter and save exactly zero lives? It's clear that the only reason this law was passed was because it sounds gross, and most people aren't informed enough to know that the alternative is even more gruesome. It was a way of scoring political points, but it only serves to increase an even more inhumane method of killing a fetus, which also, by the way, at the same time puts the health of the mother at greater risk, given its more invasive procedure.
The Supreme Court did its job today, and they should be applauded. Congress, however, should be faulted for passing a bad law for cheap political gain.
that even today the court said that intact D&E could only be struck down as long as safe alternatives exist. That safe alternative was standard D&E. Basically, Congress could pick to ban one or the other. I'm arguing that given the choices, congress should have banned the other if they were going to ban one.
1. You struggle manfully to make this an either/or decision. It isn't. I can be a both/and decision. Now that one method has been outlawed we can go after the next so long as we have conflicting medical opinions on its necessity.
2. The Court clearly opened the door to outlawing third trimester abortions.
If we are able to get rid of third trimester abortions, even though only 1.4% of abortions occur after 21 weeks, most of them closer to 21 than to 26/27 weeks, we can get rid of both procedures. We will have moved closer to eradicating elective legal abortions.
"A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition." -- Rudyard Kipling
1) I don't deny that someday both procedures might be outlawed, but that day isn't today. Why not outlaw the more gruesome first instead of increase its practice, even if only temporarily?
2) There is nothing to stop any state from outlawing third trimester abortions now, so long as they make exceptions for the life and health of the mother. That's been the case since Roe. I read the opinion, but I'm no lawyer so I may well be missing something. Is there something in this opinion that changes either of these exceptions?
but is it addressed in this ruling? My understanding (and once again, I'm not a lawyer, but I did read it), is that today's ruling merely said that banning intact D&E would not signficantly threaten a woman's health. It left the exception in place, though.
I'm just saying that Congress did the equivalent of banning lethal injection, while leaving the iron maiden legal and actually increasing its use.
then why bother banning any one method at all? This will not decrease the number of abortions that occur, it will only make them (even) less humane. This is ironic since this is precisely the OPPOSITE of what the law's supporters say it does.
Next we go after standard D & E.
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"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777