Update [2005-7-11 17:40:30 by Armando]: From the diaries by Armando. Title changed cuz I won't use the GOP talking points "partial birth."Update [2005-7-11 18:12:57 by Armando]: By Armando. Title negotiation updates deleted.
[Full disclosure:
Hadley Arkes was my thesis advisor in college, and one of my main academic mentors. While we disagreed strongly on most political issues, including this one, he is a sincere and decent man, and a true scholar.]
Column by Prof. Arkes in today's NRO focused mainly on "the two Ediths" -- Judges Edith Jones and Edith (Joy) Clement, who are very much in the mix for the O'Connor slot.
Of the two, Arkes notes, Jones' conservative principles are clearer, while Clement presents a fuzzier target with, perhaps, a greater potential for going "Souter" on the Republican party. ("If we know little, really, about her philosophy or jural principles," Arkes writes, "How do know that she will not alter when she is suddenly showered with acclaim from the law schools at Harvard and Columbia? Will she not be lured as she is praised in measures ever grander, as a jurist of high rank, as she "grows" with each step ever more "moderate" and liberal? Those who commend her face the risk of joining the ranks of those who offered assurance on Kennedy and Souter, and lost forevermore their credibility.")
But what I wanted to draw your attention to was what Arkes has to say about the "partial birth" issue, and what might happen when the Supreme Court adds the fifth vote in favor of its ban:
And what is that most important work? For the conservatives, the most consequential shift would come in flipping the decision on Stenberg v. Carhart (2000) and upholding the federal ban on partial-birth abortion. Either one of the Ediths would guarantee that outcome; and in my own reckoning, such a decision on partial-birth abortion would virtually bring to an end the Roe v. Wade regime. For it would send up a signal to legislatures throughout the country that the Court was now open for business in sustaining many varieties of restriction on abortion. They might be measures to require the method of abortion most likely to preserve the life of the child, or measures actually to bar abortions late in pregnancy, or abortions ordered up because of the likely disabilities or afflictions of the child (e.g., Down's syndrome, spina bifida). Just whether or when Roe v. Wade is actually, explicitly overturned may cease to matter quite as much. For in the meantime, the public would have the chance to get used to a continuing train of laws restricting and regulating abortion. Ordinary people would be drawn in to talk again about the circumstances under which abortions may be justified. And that talk, among ordinary folk, will become more and more common because those they elect, sitting in local legislatures, will be enfranchised again to pass laws and make judgments on these matters.
Emphasis added. Scared?
Understand this: Prof. Arkes is the leading academic champion of the pro-life cause, and a good friend of Sen. Santorum, "Nino" (as he always referred to him to me) and others across the aisle. He knows what he's talking about.
Welcome to the slippery slope of what happens when women's reproductive rights don't come first.