Posted on 06/22/2003 2:12:10 PM PDT by Carthago delenda est
The writer is one of the lawyers who in 2000 successfully argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Stenberg vs. Carhart, in which the court struck down a Nebraska law against the procedure ofter termed partial-birth abortion.
On June 4, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a bill banning so-called partial birth abortions - just three years after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a similar Nebraska ban. The bill, which is similar to one already passed by the Senate, is expected to be signed by the president shortly.
Proponents of the bill have been working overtime to give the impression that the only people who could oppose such bans are extremists. The reality, however, is far different. No fewer than 50 federal and state court judges in 21 lawsuits - judges appointed by Democrats and Republicans alike - have examined what these laws actually do and have held that they are unconstitutional.
In Stenberg vs. Carhart, the Supreme Court - the final arbiter of what our Constitution protects - ruled that Nebraska's law had two fatal flaws. While its supporters had claimed the law would ban only one post-viability method of abortion, the court ruled that it actually would ban the safest and most common methods of abortion starting at the beginning of the second trimester of pregnancy - long before fetal viability.
In addition, the court ruled that the law's failure to make any exception to protect a woman's health violated one of the core principles of Roe vs. Wade - that states cannot endanger women's health. A ban without a health exception, the court held, would endanger women because it would prevent the physician from performing the method of abortion that was the safest for a particular woman. Rather than fixing this fundamental defect, Congress simply added a "finding" that the banned procedures are never warranted for health reasons. In cases stretching back to 1803, however, the Supreme Court has consistently held that lawmakers can't just ignore rulings they dislike by adopting their own "findings."
As counsel to Dr. LeRoy Carhart - the Bellevue physician who challenged the Nebraska law - and as part of the team of lawyers that successfully challenged similar statutes in 13 other states, I am experiencing a kind of legal deja vu. The Supreme Court's decision in Carhart was the culmination of a 6-year battle and resolved these issues. So why are we now faced with the prospect of going back to the courts on the exact same issues? Because supporters of this bill have simply chosen to ignore the court's decision.
The new federal bill suffers from the same two flaws that doomed Nebraska's law, as if Stenberg vs. Carhart never happened. Once again, rather than limiting the ban to a single procedure, the sponsors have written a ban so broad that it would criminalize the safest and most common methods of abortion starting at the beginning of the second trimester. Even more remarkable perhaps, the sponsors have completely ignored the Supreme Court's holding that any ban must contain a health exception. In essence, its authors have put a new coat of paint on a condemned house and are hoping that no one notices.
Why would the sponsors promote and President Bush pledge to sign an unconstitutional bill? It's hard to escape the conclusion that their real purpose is to erode further the legal protections for women's right to control their bodies and lives. And that they are restarting the legal battle in hopes that, by the time the fight over this new bill reaches the Supreme Court, the court's composition will have changed. With the current Congress and president, anti-choice activists are optimistic that, in the event of an opening on the court, any new appointment would tip the balance against the right to choose abortion.
The Center for Reproductive Rights is poised to fight this law once more. With Supreme Court precedent on our side, I am confident that we can win in the lower courts. However, just like my opponents, I am all too aware that the appointment of a new justice could spell the end of Carhart and Roe vs. Wade, both of which are currently hanging by a one-vote majority.
• Smith is director of the Domestic Legal Program of the Center for Reproductive Rights.
Prayer for the Helpless Unborn
Heavenly Father, in your love for us,
protect against the wickedness of the
devil, those helpless little ones to
whom you have give the gift of life.
Touch with pity the hearts of those
women pregnant in our world today
who are not thinking of motherhood.
Help them to see that the child they
carry is made in your image- as well
as theirs- made for eternal life.
Dispel their fear and selfishness and
give them tur womanly hearts to love
their babies and give them birth and
all the needed care that a mother
alone can give.
We ask this through Jesus Christ,
your Son, our Lord, who lives and
reigns in the Holy Spirit, one God,
forever and ever.
Amen.
You might be more comfortable at DemocratUnderground, where the vast majority of members hold sacred the woman's specious right to kill the alive, individual unborn human beings unfortunate to be sequestered in a womb where they are not 'wanted' because of selfish behvaior for which a woman seeks any means to avoid the consequences, even killing another alive individual human being. You'd fit right in!
The idea of equality before the law extends to the limits of that law's jurisdiction, as always.
Just because something is legal, doesn't make it right, but we can only regulate that within the bounds of our own government. If you wish to go elsewhere and comply with their laws, you will, as your means permit. The rich have always had that option.
But how can you, on one hand argue for equality under the law and argue for abortion on the other?
If a charge of murder can be (and frequently is) issued for the killing of an unborn child by, say, gunshot or drunken driving, why is the child murdered in the womb by a bullet or a drunk's automobile more entitled to the protection of the law than one who is slaughtered by curetage and suction through a natural orifice?
Given a choice, I would no more pay for a D&C under a Welfare program than I would pay for the murderer's ammunition or buy the drunk 'one for the road'. I see no moral distinction.
Furthermore, I find it disingenous that you would argue for poor people getting abortions on the basis of doing away with welfare spending. Really poor people can't afford an abortion. Where do you think they get the money? 'Medical Necessity' has been expanded to include the emotional health of the mother. "You say you'll go crazy if you have this kid? (scribble scribble) OK, sign here....." From welfare! {READ: My tax money at work.}
If they can't, with our (collectively) callous cultural attitude toward infanticide in the womb, it is a short jump, morally speaking, to wrapping the baby in a trash bag and leaving it in a dumpster, something we hear more of in the news.
They used to at least leave the kid on the church steps in a basket, making adoption possible.
But with abortion-on-demand, perfectly healthy children (rich, middle class, and, occasionally poor) are being slaughtered because they are inconvenient or unwanted. Justify that. Anyone who has raised a child will tell you that they are all inconvenient, at least at times. That goes with the territory.
Those who do not wish to have children have a plethora of devices and methods to prevent conception, if they will grow up, be responsible, and use them, ranging from abstinence to contraception to sterilization. All of these methods are cheaper than abortion, and all prevent conception and all the moral problems which begin with that first cell division and, from there, have the potential to break olympic records, teach other children, battle fires, or invent a faster than light drive.
One of the most prominent physicists of our time might have been suctioned out if the means had existed to perform a genetic profiling and determine that with his genius would come severe physical handicaps.
With the mapping of the human genome, how long before the state decides whether you can even have a child? (Read Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, if you haven't. It is a little dated, but we will face--and are facing issues raised there today.) Keep in mind that the State will use the tools accepted by the prevailing culture in place and you decide the future today.
As for Crack moms, they don't care about anything but the high, and are just as likely to have the kid, provided it survives the prenatal environmnet.
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