The Impact of Alito (could stop baby-killing!!!)

NewsMax.com ^ | 2 February 2006 | Susan Estrich

[Aussie Dasher]

Now that Sam Alito has been confirmed, the pro-choice movement in America needs to take stock. The effort to stop Alito was a colossal failure.

The opportunity to educate the public about the tenuous state of abortion rights in America was utterly lost in a confusing Senate strategy that at one moment focused on Alito's club memberships, at another on his investments and hardly ever on the likely future for women in this country. But the senators alone cannot be blamed.

The pro-choice movement was in many respects no more effective than the senators in reaching women - despite repeated claims that Roe was at risk, most women remained ummoved. There was no outrage, little pressure and nothing resembling an effective grass-roots movement to stop Alito.

Part of the reason, no doubt, is because the women with the most political clout in this country do not feel vulnerable to Sam Alito. To a very large extent, they are right. But that is not a good enough reason for their apathy.

Even if Roe were to be overruled, women in blue states along the two coasts would be unlikely to see any major changes in their rights, or in access to abortion. The decision as to abortion rights would shift back to each of the states - in states with pro-choice majorities or super-majorities in the legislatures or pro-choice governors, protection of abortion rights would be afforded by state law, or even by the state Constitution.

[Aussie Dasher]

THere is nothing "pro-choice" about killing babies!

[JennysCool]

The New Sue

Same old lib brain, tho.

[GrandEagle]

yet for women serving this country overseas, or for the dependents of servicemen, there are often no safe alternatives but military hospitals.

The form of murder commonly called "abortion" is NEVER safe for the baby.

[TheGeezer]

Was that picture from 1942?

[bnelson44]

And other kinds of killing:

Alito Opposes Mo. Execution

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/02/01/D8FGN8509.html

[JennysCool]

Nope. She's had a remake! :-)

[Former Fetus]

Pro-choice? That's a lie!
No baby chooses to die.

[neodad]

Greta V. ought to get her doctor's card.

[PennsylvaniaMom]

I want her doctor's name. Excellent facelife and resurfacing of the skin. She looks natural, but younger...great surgery!!!

[Dreagon]

I think a lot of people are going to be disappointed when they realize that Alito hasn't shifted the balance of the court as far as they think. Kennedy is pretty liberal on a lot of issues.

[marshmallow]

Justice Kennedy can't be relied upon to vote conservative or pro-life. He's a flake.

Unfortunately, he is the swing vote right now and so I believe the pro-life side of the court is still a vote shy.

[Dreagon]

Wow. They fixed her mouth. Well, it would have been better stapled shut, but I guess any improvement counts.

[Defiant]

It's not hard to conclude that Roe was an anti-constitutional decision that ought to be overturned, and will be, with one more Supreme Court vote. The difficult issue will follow: Is a baby in the womb a "person" protected by the due process clause of the US Constitution? If so, he/she may not be murdered simply as a birth control method.

The Constitution is silent on whether unborn children are protected to the same extent as all other citizens. This was a situation that did not confront the founders, and there is probably no documentation on whether they believed that the rights conferred by the Constitution applied to the unborn.

Another issue would be whether the federal government could outlaw abortion across the land. After all, Congress is trying to regulate abortion in the legislation on partial birth abortion. However, the same reverence for the constitution that would permit Roe to be overturned would also counsel for overturning the expansive view of the Constitution as allowing the Congress to declare that just about anything is under its purview, due to the "interstate commerce clause." Theoretically, abortion is an issue that should be left to the states, but since Congress can find a tenuous indirect connection of anything to interstate commerce, it has been allowed to legislate on anything and everything since the days of FDR.

In any event, there will be a lot of battles ahead, and a lot of arguments to make.

[sarasmom]

"The pro-choice movement was in many respects no more effective than the senators in reaching women - despite repeated claims that Roe was at risk, most women remained ummoved. There was no outrage, little pressure and nothing resembling an effective grass-roots movement to stop Alito"

I doubt that Susan "Estwitch" will let even her own words impact her thought processes in any measurable way. She basically stated:
If the majority of the women in the USA do not view the "right to have an elective abortion" as their number one political priority...perhaps women are not actually intelligent enough to vote./sarcasm//
Poor Susan!/sarcasm//
She will never comprehend that most women are intelligent enough to comprehend that this particular "right" can easily become a mandated and government enforced "requirement".
Or maybe she does, and she actually wants the government to control female fertility...

[Soul Seeker]

When I tell my students about the bad old days, when we used to collect money along the hallway of the dorm and bundle someone off on the bus to New York, hoping she wouldn't start hemorrhaging on the way home, they look at me as if I were from another time zone, another country.

Imagine that Suze. [sarcasm]

Maybe Americans have grown up a bit, too much to fall for these lame scare tactics?

Look, Alito won't change the balance even if Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Roberts all are solid on issue. Kennedy just wants the party circuit in D.C. to like him. Completely unreliable. What some are hoping is that Kennedy will at least remain firm to what he did in past, and in so doing keep partial birth. Re-address CFR...personally I'd like to see him keep his hands of rulings about national security, O'Connor tended to be the more reliable decision maker there.

Theoretically should we ever get 5 solid Justices? I suspect they won't overtrun, they'll just do everything short of it until the law is hollowed out. Then it'll quietly pass from the books once it's been gutted.

What that means is that people will vote on the issue.

I suspect most states will ban late term abortion. Require parental notification and/or approval. Spousal notification. Rape/Incest will remain legal to get an abortion. 1st tri abortions will probably be legal in most states if not all. The second tri is what will be grey area, not sure I can predict where people will fall on that.

Then for years afterward people will fight over it, tweak where their states stand on it, eventually a national consensus will be reached. Obviously pro-lifers hope in favor of life altogether, but we'll see. Should that ever come, a constitutional amendment will probably be bantered about which is how changes should occur. Not through the Judiciary.

Really, overturning or just gutting R v W is only the beginning of a fight. No one in this country really knows where people exactly stand because Justices have prevented a real decision being made by the People. Polls don't cut it, at least this way there will be clarity and eventually less acrimony.

[ex_desert_cowboy]

Man, whoever did her remake was an artist. I wonder if my wife...... maybe not.

[lesser_satan]

Wow. She doesn't look half bad. If they could just change her voice a bit.....I still don't know if I'd hit that. >8^)>~

[nralife]

"I think a lot of people are going to be disappointed when they realize that Alito hasn't shifted the balance of the court as far as they think. Kennedy is pretty liberal on a lot of issues."


Bingo! At most, the court has four conservatives on it. Roberts is pretty much an unknown commodity. Kennedy is the new swing vote.

[rwfromkansas]

We are close enough we could get some further restriction on abortion since Kennedy couuld go with us on a few of those cases.

HOWEVER, we are definitely not going to see Roe overturned unless we get another vote.

[Ann Archy]

Did Susie Baby Killer get a face lift?