Supreme Court upholds partial birth abortion ban

Alma --
Here's more from Ginzburg's dissent. I agree with her. You probably don't. But it's a measure of how the arguments went, I think:

"Revealing in this regard, the Court invokes an antiabortion shibboleth for which it concededly has no reliable evidence: Women who have abortions come to regret their choices, and consequently suffer from '"severe depression and loss of esteem.' Because of women's fragile emotional state and because of the bond of love the mother has for her child,' the Court worries, doctors may withhold information about the nature of the intact D&E procedure. The solution the Court approves, then, is not to require doctors to inform women, accurately and adequately, of the different procedures and their attendant risks. Instead, the Court deprives women of the right to make an autonomous choice, even at the expense of their safety. This way of thinking reflects ancient notions about women's place in the family and under the Constitution ideas that have long since been discredited."

 

Did she really use the word shibboleth in her dissent?

 

President Jed would be so proud.

 

I've read her dissent. The opinion actually refers to women who might regret their choice, not that all women necessarily do. I appreciate the honestly, at the very least, in that section. This is really about a woman making whatever choice she pleases in the matter. I don't mean to flippant - certainly abortion is never a pleasing choice. I think the idea is this: How are you going to hold the doctor responsible for explaining these choices? It's an abortion. No method is, you know, fun. Women don't go skipping into the clinics. The women will go with whatever the doctor tells them.

We'll just have to see. If alternatives are really that dangerous, either the abortions will go way down, or doctors will improve the alternatives. Somehow I imagine the latter would occur.

 

My favorite line:

Well jeez, at least she'll never be able to make more babies to abort. :