Supreme Court Chips Away at Women's Right to Choose

Posted on April 19, 2007

In a 5-4 decision, The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the 2003 Partial Birth Abortion Act, beginning the eventual complete gutting of Roe vs. Wade and the right to choose by American women. With Alito replacing Sandra Day O'Conner, this decision was a foregone conclusion. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg wrote a stinging dissent. Justice Kennedy, the swing vote who swung the wrong way on this one, wrote a condescening opinion which essentially said that women can't be trusted to make their own decisions and might regret their actions later. Therefore, presumably, a bunch of old men need to make the decision for women who couldn't possibly be allowed to make their own medical decisions. The five justices who voted to uphold the unconstitutional law ignored the weight of medical evidence that said that the procedure, although rare, sometimes is the only way to safeguard the health of the mother.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg acknowledged as much moments later, when she solemnly read a statement from the bench explaining her dissent.
The majority opinion, she told a stone-silent courtroom, "cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to chip away at a right declared again and again by this court -- and with increasing comprehension of its centrality to women's lives."
The federal law bans a procedure used in a limited number of midterm abortions, but the court's decision will probably have an immediate effect on U.S. politics and lawmaking.
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The decision is especially significant because the court had rejected in 2000 a Nebraska law aimed at banning what opponents call "partial birth" abortion, because it lacked an exception for preserving the health of the woman. That five-member majority included all of yesterday's dissenters, plus then-Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. With Alito taking her place and approving the federal ban, the majority has shifted. Antiabortion activists now see the makings of a court they have longed for. "It is just a matter of time before the infamous Roe v. Wade . . . will also be struck down by the court," predicted Roberta Combs, president of the Christian Coalition of America. "The impact of Sandra Day O'Connor's retirement is painfully clear," said Nancy Northrup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, adding: "It took just a year for this new court to overturn three decades of established constitutional law."

This is only the beginning. If President Bush is allowed to choose another Supreme Court justice, women in America will have one of their most important rights -- the right to control their own medical care and what happens to their own bodies -- summarily stripped from them.