Well I was outraged by the decision. Although admittedly not keen on abortion, I found the 5-4 decision rendered by the court to be wrong on so many levels. As most people know partial birth abortion occurs primarily when the mother is going to die and the baby has a sever condition like hydrocephlous.
I had some thoughts about it. I will describe them beneath the fold.
First of all, for those of you want to blame the Catholic Church, you are focusing on the wrong party. While the Catholic will always oppose abortion--it does so because it believes that an unborn fetus is alive and the church is against the killing of all life (even the death penalty)--you should really blame the Christian Reconstructionists. You should blame organizations like the Christian Coalition, the Moral Majority, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and other fundademtnalist Christians, most of whom have no love--in fact many of them have pure hatred--for the Catholic church.
With that out of the way the emotion that I had was anger. I thought of the Greens and the Naderites from 2000. I think of ultra-feminist Barbara Ehnreich, who had at least one abortion herself. She voted for Nader in Florida. I think of Michael Moore and the other high-profile Nader supports like Susan Sarandon, who could easily travel to another country to receive an abortion should she ever need one. They aren't suffering the consequences that ordinary women have to face. I can't help but feel anger toward the Nader crowd. 96K votes in Florida and 20K votes in New Hampshire made this possible.
I know that they make every rationalization happen. They blame the Supreme Court. They blame Gore for choosing Lieberman, whom no one knew would become a neocon (At least I didn't). They blame northern and Panhandle Democrats--more like Dixiecrats--for not supporting Gore, when the only Democrat they would have supported at the national level (although they will occasionally still support local Democrats) was someone like Zeller Mille. They blame the media. They blame Gore for not fighting even though he was up against a hostile media.
I want everyone on this blog to remember yesterday. For next year, whenever the nomination is wrapped up, the typical unpragmatic folks on the far left will whine that the nominee is "Republican-Lite" and a DINO. There are some who will never be happy with any Democrat candidate. When they come to self-righteously claim that they will vote third party, bring up this decision. Bring up what happened yesterday. For this is the consequence of voting for Nader.
I will never forget what Nader and his supporters did in 2000. I will never forget yesterday. The decision rendered by the Supreme Court will forever stand as an example of what goes wrong when the other party controls the White House. As Senator Boxer told Senator Inhofe at a hearing a few weeks ago when he was talking out of line, "elections have consequences". The consequences of the 2000 election still continue. This is perhaps one of the worst.
So remember yesterday, 4/18/07, and keep it in your mind. The next time you even think about voting third party, remember it. And yes, even though Democratic candidates aren't embracing every radical left-wing idea, there is a difference. No Democratic president would have put a justice who would have ruled the way that the court did yesterday.
And that is what I think. So, if/when women ever have to get coathanger abortions, think of the 2000 election and the 96K votes Nader polled in Florida. Think about that hard, especially when some people will inevitably flirt with a third party candidate. As Senator Boxer said, "elections have consequences".