Posted on 04/19/2007 9:56:32 AM PDT by presidio9
Ever since Roe v. Wade in 1973, graphic descriptions of abortion have been staples of abortion opponents. Abortion rights advocates have preferred more scientific terms. Neither is by accident.
The Supreme Court adopted the more graphic approach Wednesday as a conservative majority of justices upheld a nationwide ban on a controversial abortion procedure.
"The way in which the fetus will be killed ... is of legitimate concern" to the government, the majority said.
In opinions after Roe v. Wade, the decision saying a woman has a constitutional right to abortion, clinical terminology has been the order of the day at the court.
All that changed in 2000, when Justice Anthony Kennedy described abortion procedures in painstaking detail. He did so as a dissenter in Stenberg v. Carhart, the ruling striking down Nebraska's ban on what opponents call partial-birth abortions.
"Repeated references to sources understandable only to a trained physician may obscure matters for persons not trained in medical terminology," Kennedy wrote in 2000. "Thus it seems necessary at the outset to set forth what may happen during an abortion."
Kennedy then explained abortion procedures in explicit terms that hadn't been seen previously at the court. The break with tradition prompted Justice John Paul Stevens to note in a concurring opinion, "Much ink is spilled today describing the gruesome nature of late-term abortion procedures."
Kennedy returned to form Wednesday when he wrote the decision of the court.
"It is self-evident that a mother who comes to regret her choice to abort must struggle with grief more anguished and sorrow more profound when she learns ... what she once did not know: that she allowed a doctor to pierce the skull and vacuum the fast-developing brain of her unborn child," Kennedy wrote.
In a forceful dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg suggested that Kennedy's word-choice goes too far.
"Throughout, the opinion refers to obstetrician-gynecologists and surgeons who perform abortions not by the titles of their medical specialties, but by the pejorative label `abortion doctor,'" wrote Ginsburg. "A fetus is described as an 'unborn child,' and as a 'baby;' second-trimester, previability abortions are referred to as 'late-term.'"
She is, in most states in the US. The fact that Scott Peterson was charged with the murder of his unborn son was essentially unprecedented.
We tried to pass a law to fix that here in New Hampshire a couple of years ago, but the pro-abortion crowd screamed that it was a “slippery slope.”
Should preface that law by saying: The killing of an "unborn child" at any stage of pre-natal development (outside of an abortion clinic) is intentional homicide, voluntary manslaughter, or involuntary manslaughter or reckless homicide.
As an aside, when my sister-in-law was eight months pregnant with twins, she was hospitalized with high blood pressure. Every time I went to visit her, the doctor always reffered to "the fetus" instead of "the baby." It really creeped me out.
Damn know-it-alls... thinking Clark Kent is Superman! I mean, come on!
Abortion Rights Activists prefer more scientific terms? Remember the Penn and Teller scam last week where they got Environmental Activists to sign a petition to ban Di-Hydrogen Monoxide?
Shucks, I hate admitting that I’m wrong.
Wait, I may be behind the times here...
Yes, I am a bit - Bush signed the Unborn Victims of Violence Act in 2004. But that only applies to crimes having federal jurisdiction. According to the Wikipedia article (I know, I know...) 34 states have similar laws for state-jurisdiction crimes.
Besides Adolf’s bulging eyes, she has the same manic obsession with power and lack of conscience. If she had to murder 6 million Jews to rule the world, no problem. Don’t forget, when it comes to a sociopath, the end always justifies the means.
Penn Jillette is best left to another thread. He is rabidly pro-abortion.
She may be a lawyer but she has no clue about medicine and especially pregnancy. This slug is clueless and unable to understand reality.
To the fast approaching non-viable Ruthie Ginsberg, the debate is about not exposing the dehumanizing rhetoric her allies in evil have promoted. She, like all liberal pukes, cannot stand truth to invade the mountain of lies upon which her world view rests ... she is the exhibiting the ‘zeitgeist’ of liberalism, shape the debate by capturing the language and spit upon any who would shine truth to ‘power’, the power of evil to twist and lie for empowerment.
Thank you, I’m glad to see that my very liberal state got one thing right!
Looks like she just bit the head off a Bat!
Coulter is right, it's a religous sacrifice. {Someone please help with the pictures}
The truth will set us free! It’s like some people in this country are under some kind of evil spell and would kill for the right to an abortion.
You are right!
Hell... fetus isn’t even specific, it’s a generic term used mainly for mammals in the womb. So what specifically is it they are aborting? They’ve already established “it” is alive. Could it possibly be a human being? Gasp! It’s a baby human!
JW
You should have corrected the doctor!
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