The law imposes a variety of burdens on Constitutional rights. The campaign finance law, for instance, imposes burdens on free speech. Various gun control laws impose burdens on the right to keep and bear arms.
These are actual rights spelled out in the Constitution, and they are curtailed in certain ways. It’s certainly debatable whether Congress should be able to enact such restrictions on these rights, but it seems a pretty settled issue that they can. For a right that is not spelled out in the Constitution, merely found in its “prenumbras,” it seems quite reasonable that restrictions can be placed on it. Furthermore, as noted above, Casey basically overruled Roe and explicitly said that certain restrictions on abortion were fine as long as they were reasonable. You may not think that a ban on partial birth abortion is reasonable, but as even you pointed out, it won’t really affect much of anything. So banning a little used procedure seems a pretty reasonable restriction to me.
I partially agree that this decision doesn’t really chip away at Roe, or more importantly, Casey. But that’s only because the evaluation of undue burden was pretty subjective to begin with. This court’s evaluation of undue burden does seem to be different from how the Casey court saw it.
Most importantly, the court says medical uncertainty about whether the procedure is ever the safest option is enough to mean that there is no undue burden. I think medical certainty is too high a standard to ask for. Fortunately, AFAICT, this is only going to be meaningful for a facial challenge. Once a woman that needed the procedure doesn’t get it, it’s a whole new ballgame.
Also, the majority conspicuously refers to fetus as life now, instead of potential life. I’m not sure that has any legal consequence, but it is certainly a shift.
Just for the record, I think it’s way off-base to attack you on those grounds. I think it’s important to call attention to the way in which unwanted pregnancy and childbirth can destroy women’s lives precisely because pro-lifers like you don’t hate women at all or grasp why reproductive legislation is bad for them.
I fully expect congress to pass laws banning unsafe medical procedures, based on scientific evidence of same, I do not expect them to pass laws banning safe medical procedures due to religous/emotional rhetoric.
Those that feel that fetus’s (feti?) are living babys always have the choice to not have an abortion, those that do not agree with that, and believe that they have the right to choose termination, should be able to choose the procedure that they and thier doctor agree upon.
*safe is a relative word here, no procedure is always safe in all cases, point is that some medical procedures should be ‘banned’ (icepick lobotomy as an example) because of thier obvious risk/reward bits… but don’t our tort/malpractice laws already deal with most, if not all, of those issues?
I’m not trying to say it’s all rainbows and fluffy bunnies. It’s bad law, it’s going to potentially place women at risk, it will make many people very unhappy. As shitty a situation as it is, bad things happen to people without the government violating their constitutional rights.
The government has the authority to ban procedures like this for any reason, or no reason, or a crappy reason, as long as they’re not stepping directly on your rights.
Of course, the new Dem Congress can always repeal the ban, W will veto the repeal, and we’ll see how that affects the 2008 election. IMO, it will hurt the Pubs and help the Dems at the polls. Immensely. Most of the American people, however squeamish they may feel about the whole thing, want abortion clinics to be available in case their teenage daughter gets knocked up, period. This genie will never be forced back into the bottle.
Maybe so, but something like 70% also supported this legislation, which many see as a reasonable limit on abortion. Maybe with more education that number would change, but that’s a big if.
Since it had fairly strong bipartisan support when it passed Congress (including Senate Majority Leader Reid and Pres pro tem Byrd), it’s unlikely the Democrats will be pushing any sort of repeal measure.
I’m an idiot waves. I was under the understanding that PBA meant that whole thing where they yank a baby halfway out, then let it die in one way or another. I’m probably a victim of propaganda or something or another.
So enlighten me, please. Fight my ignorance. What exactly are we talking about here when we say Partial Birth Abortions?
The Supreme Court isn’t really supposed to be determining if a law is rational or even good. It’s supposed to be determining if the law is Constitutional. As long as it is Constitutional, it can be a particularly crappy law and the Court, if it is doing its job, should not overturn it.
And oddly enough, by their unwillingness to grant sexual orientation a degree of heightened scrutiny and deciding gay rights cases based on rational basis scrutiny, the Courts might finally be putting some teeth back into rational basis review.