<p>Sorry for coming in late here. For me there are two interesting things that keep coming up in abortion discussions. What did Roe vs. Wade say and what is the state of medicine.</p>
<p>Justice Blackmun knew many physicians and came up with what he thought was a reasonable demarcation between first-trimester, second-trimester and third-trimester abortions based upon the state of medicine in 1973. He wrote that in the third tri-mester the state’s interest in the fetus could be taken into account.</p>
<p>In a later case, Justice O’Connor noted that the Roe vs. Wade tri-mester test was on a collision course with itself for two reasons. One being that medical care for premature infants was improving thus creating a right for fetuses in one state where they would not have that right in another state.</p>
<p>To me, the second point is quite important because the differences in the rights afforded the mother between the different states was the reason the court took up the issue in the first place.</p>
<p>As I understand the law in question, it is about late second and early third tri-mester abortions. Roe explicitly contemplated some type of state regulation at this point in a pregnancy because of the viability of the fetus. This is what one legislature determined to be an acceptable regulation and the Supreme Court allowed it.</p>
<p>Some one early in the thread seemed upset that the Catholic justices on the court could be allowed to establish a theocracy. Seems like a statement way out of proportion since the court did nothing of the sort. The original decision took away the will of the people, acting through it legislative bodies, and created a new right not found in the constitution.</p>
<p>In most European countries, some of which are majority Catholic, abortion is legal and there is less emotion about it. It is my belief that it is because the people had to work through the issues instead of having the issued determined by 9 members of a court.</p>
<p>A nurse who never saw the patient or read the chart knows the facts of the case better than the doctor who actually treated the patient? Amazing. What a smear on a reputable physican. There was actually a state Attorney General’s opinion issued in this case. Of course it happened.</p>
<p>Read the bishop’s directives, and you’ll understand the reason they denied this woman necessary medical treatment. The Attorney General of the state issued a statement that it wasn’t legal, because the non-Catholic part of the hospital had been chartered to provide services in a non-sectarian manner. </p>
<p>There’s a huge difference between “illegal” and “didn’t happen.”
I think before anyone calls this doctor a liar they at least need to look at the facts.</p>
<p>I’m not really interested in this debate; but judging by many posts throughout this thread, I thought some here might benefit from reading this succinct piece. (The author is not Catholic.)</p>
<p>If an author is part of a left-wing think tank, we must take his words as gospel. If he is part of a right-wing think tank, his views are, for some reason, suspect and discredited. Should we ban right-wing think tanks? Are these ideas automatically to be suppressed?</p>
<p>In this particular case, the author presented some important points. There was clearly bigotry expressed earlier in this thread. Ginsberg’s and Breyer’s religious views are not open for criticism, but the Catholic justices’ views are. The justices take an oath not to let their religions interfere with their interpretation of the constitution. People can criticize their interpretations, but these same critics should leave the justices’ religious affiliations out of it.</p>
<p>We all understand this game you and others here play, conyat.</p>
<p>The larger question is why some of us continue to try to present other viewpoints, when it is so clear by now that you have all the answers.</p>
<p>Let’s see some of AEI’s other “views”: Saddam had WMD and ties to Al Queda, the invasion will be a cakewalk with no need for a prolonged occupation, the surge will produce positive effects by early summer and be finished by late summer. </p>
<p>No, no reason at all to think that there are issues with bias or reliability that should be considered when their opinion pieces are cited–least of all when the op-ed title contains inflammatory language.</p>
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<p>Nice use of the victim card. With a little straw man attack for good measure. All I said was consider the source. </p>
<p>I simply don’t get the logic behind the neocon meme that if anyone disagrees with them, their rights to expression are somehow being violated. </p>
<p>Where does the Constitution guarantee anyone the right to universal praise or universal credulity? And where does it say that those rights are limited to one particular “in crowd”?</p>
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<p>When did it become unacceptable to provide context for opinion pieces that are linked to? I must have missed the memo.</p>
<p>The whole point in the editors listing the author’s ties to the AEI and the Bush administration are to allow people to consider possible conflicts of interest in evaluating the author’s work. It goes to basic fairness to the reader.</p>
<p>I truly think you are oblivious to the fact, conyat, that in your post 285 you did not challenge the author’s statements or ideas–you simply challenged his affiliations.</p>
<p>You and others here do this repeatedly. This is why so many moderate and right-of-center posters here simply don’t bother anymore. </p>
<p>For some reason, you seem to be under the impression that this tactic alone is enough to prove that your view is correct.</p>
<p>Ironically, this same tactic was used here by the posters who dismissed out-of-hand the decision simply because the justices are Catholic.</p>
<p>I think this is what the author was getting with his use of the term “know nothing left.”</p>
<p>Frankly, if anyone is advancing silly and frivolous reasons to explain why the court broke with precedent, it’s your AEI think-tanker. This is one of his “explanations”: </p>
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<p>The role of the Supreme Court is not to implement popular “public opinion”; it’s to rule on the law. To suggest that these five justicies let opinion polls dictate how they rule on important cases…is, well, beyond ridiculous. </p>
<p>This is an example of why I don’t think that op-ed is worth relying on. Why would an author without an axe to grind make such a ridiculous statement about the judges? He has to have known better.</p>
<p>And, PS, I’m still waiting to see you expose these phantom “bigots” of yours.</p>
<p>Here’s another ridiculous statement by your think-tanker:</p>
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<p>Of course critics of the decision, both liberal and conservative, believe that people find the procedure immoral. Why wouldn’t we believe people think that? The polling data makes it very clear, as your author points out. The criticism isn’t based on ignorance of the polls or a mistaken idea that the majority of people think Intact D&X is moral. </p>
<p>The criticism is based on the fact that this is the first time the court has broken with precedent and ruled that risk of non-lethal health injury, even grevious health injury, to a woman must be ignored in making decisions about an abortion procedure. The fact that this ruling mirrors the bishops’ directives for health care and not established precedent or the position of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is what’s driving the examination of the justices’ possible religious bias.</p>
<p>For your author to pretend that liberals simply don’t understand or believe the polling data about partial birth abortion is a straw man argument. Straw man arguments by definition are dishonest. I choose not to give much credence to opinion pieces that deliberately mislead the reader. Yoo belonging to a neocon think-tank is a symptom, not the cause of the problem with his article.</p>
<p>No need to refer to that article . . . thanks for posting it though.</p>
<p>What I do not understand is how the most recent decision overturns legal precedent. Further, it actually makes the court less activist since it leaves to the legislature the law making ability.</p>
<p>The original decision overturned years of legal precedent instead of letting the legislative process across all the states to work through the issues like they did in Europe and other places.</p>
<p>Because this is the first time that the Supreme Court has ruled that whether a woman was likely to lose a kidney or laspe into an irreversible coma could play no part in a doctor’s medical decision as to whether to use a particular procedure. The doctor can only consider the woman’s health if she is going to die. This is new.</p>
<p>Even Yoo doesn’t seriously dispute that the judges broke with precedent. His thesis is that they did what they did for reasons other than their religion–for example that they put pandering to public opinion poll results over their sworn duties, or that Justice Kennedy puts personal powermongering above his sworn duties.</p>
<p>Something to understand about US law is that even though we have a representative form of government, the majority opinion does not always trump the minority. Our laws are supposed to be based on justice, not public opinion. </p>
<p>To give you an example, most people in a state might support a law saying that non-Christians can’t operate bookstores. But it wouldn’t survive a legal challenge, even though it’s the will of the majority, because it goes against the due process clause. </p>
<p>The Constitution states that any right not given the government is reserved for the people (such as the right to decide whether a pregnant woman can keep her kidney). It also states that no one can be deprived of anything (including a kidney or a non-vegetative state) without due process.</p>
<p>I understand the concept of tyrrany of the majority. However, 2 things:</p>
<p>1) The original Roe decision broke with precedent</p>
<p>2) The original Roe decision set out guidelines for when the public had an interest in the rights of the fetus.</p>
<p>You are correct, this is the first time the Supreme Court has actually allowed a law that was passed using the Roe guidelines.</p>
<p>One thing that seems to be overlooked is that the Supreme Court is trying to balance rights between those of the woman and those of the fetus. The way you present the position of the court you overlook that critical component of the original Roe decision. Further, it is often when rights collide that there is such contention.</p>
<p>I don’t think that’s been overlooked. What’s been overlooked is that the balance has been altered, and radically so, in favor of the bishop’s directives.</p>
<p>Even if a child isn’t viable, the court says that the doctors by law must allow severe damage to the mother’s health rather than do an Intact D&X, so long as the doctors believe the damage will stop just short of killing her.</p>
<p>By contrast, if a mother needed a blood transfusion to prevent her from miscarrying, and the blood bank was out of blood, the Courts would not likely uphold a law compelling the father to donate. Nor would they uphold a law compelling him to donate part of his liver to save his newborn’s life. </p>
<p>A man can’t even be made to suffer a pinprick to save his unborn child’s life and a woman can be compelled to give up a kidney for an unborn child that cannot live. This is hardly equal protection.</p>
<p>“this is the first time the Supreme Court has actually allowed a law that was passed using the Roe guidelines.”</p>
<p>You are incorrect. Many, many restrictions have been permitted under the “Roe guidelines.” See the Webster (1989) and Casey (1992) decisions for examples of such laws (including laws requiring parental consent & notification with judicial bypass, waiting periods, reading of state-published materials prior to having an abortion, etc.).</p>