F*** you.
Supreme Court upholds federal abortion ban
Well, there you go. Conservatives can complain all they want about the president's performance on same-sex marriage and immigration, but the Bush-stacked Supreme Court -- having just announced its decision to uphold the Federal Abortion Ban -- has officially handed them a giant freaking gift. As the New York Times/AP reports, "The 5-4 ruling said the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act that Congress passed and President Bush signed into law in 2003 does not violate a woman's constitutional right to an abortion."
Which is funny, because it does. The 2003 law was been struck down by six separate courts as unconstitutional. It carries no exception for health risks to the mother; it's also said to be worded so vaguely as to cover -- at least in chilling effect -- some of the earliest, most common abortion procedures. The procedure it bans in particular is itself not only rare, but also necessary in some of the most heartbreaking cases. Just ask the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, or Gretchen Voss. (By the way, anytime the press lazily calls anything other than the original title of this bill "partial birth abortion," the terrorists win.)
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg pulled few punches in her scathing dissent. "For the first time since Roe, the Court blesses a prohibition with no exception protecting a woman's health," she said. The ban "and the Court's defense of it cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to chip away" -- with "flimsy and transparent justifications" -- "at a right declared again and again by this Court."
"The American public should be absolutely outraged by this unprecedented and dangerous intrusion into the private relationship between a woman and her doctor," said Joan Malin, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of New York City. "Today five men with a gavel -- two of whom were handpicked by George W. Bush -- decided that they know more about medicine than do doctors. We have never before seen such a politically motivated and unwarranted invasion into the private relationship between a woman and her doctor." Planned Parenthood added in a press release that the decision "defies both common sense and established law."
Pardon my language, but this just pisses me off, predictable as it was. Here are the yea votes, dems in bold.
YEAs ---72
Akaka (D-HI)
Alexander (R-TN)
Allard (R-CO)
Allen (R-VA)
Baucus (D-MT)
Bennett (R-UT)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Bond (R-MO)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burns (R-MT)
Burr (R-NC)
Byrd (D-WV)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Carper (D-DE)
Chafee (R-RI)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Coleman (R-MN)
Collins (R-ME)
Conrad (D-ND)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Craig (R-ID)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
DeWine (R-OH)
Dole (R-NC)
Domenici (R-NM)
Dorgan (D-ND)
Enzi (R-WY)
Frist (R-TN)
Graham (R-SC)
Grassley (R-IA)
Gregg (R-NH)
Hatch (R-UT)
Hutchison (R-TX)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Inouye (D-HI)
Isakson (R-GA)
Johnson (D-SD)
Kohl (D-WI)
Kyl (R-AZ)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lieberman (D-CT)
Lincoln (D-AR)
Lott (R-MS)
Lugar (R-IN)
Martinez (R-FL)
McCain (R-AZ)
McConnell (R-KY)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Nelson (D-FL)
Nelson (D-NE)
Pryor (D-AR)
Roberts (R-KS)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Salazar (D-CO)
Santorum (R-PA)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Smith (R-OR)
Snowe (R-ME)
Specter (R-PA)
Stevens (R-AK)
Sununu (R-NH)
Talent (R-MO)
Thomas (R-WY)
Thune (R-SD)
Vitter (R-LA)
Voinovich (R-OH)
Warner (R-VA)
___________________________
Many of the democrats who voted against cloture, still did not exactly cover themselves with honor by rallying to support John Kerry's call for a filibuster. He was dismissed as a grandstander for doing what should have been done - much earlier in the process - by members of the Judiciary Committee. They may have covered their butts by voting against cloture, but they showed no courage and even less leadership in doing so:
Kerry Gets Cool Response to Call to Filibuster Alito
For reference, here's John Kerry's original DKos post: Filibuster Alito. I think it reads as well today as it did then.
On a personal note, I grew up in the first post-Roe generation. I have my own catalogue of horror stories, as most women my age do, from watching what older sisters, friends, and neighbors went through in those very dark times. We were spared. It terrifies me to think that my daughter's generation may have to revisit that era.
Needless to say, John Kerry is my hero.