Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Partial Reversal of Roe? Does it matter?

The interesting thing about the latest Supreme Court opinion is the seeming rejection of Roe by the liberals as much as the conservatives. This creates for some interesting speculation on the future of abortion in Supreme Court jurisprudence.

“Ginsburg complained that the partial-birth abortion ban ‘cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to chip away’ not at Roe, but ‘at a right declared again and again by this Court—and with increasing comprehension of its centrality to women's lives.’

Ginsburg’s dissent should remind pro-lifers that their target is not Roe, but the widespread view of children as a burdensome infringement on autonomy—a burden that can be acceptably lifted by killing the child, even as he or she emerges from the birth canal.

The strength of the partial-birth abortion ban is that it works toward changing that view. As Ginsburg correctly noted, ‘The law saves not a single fetus from destruction, for it targets only a method of performing abortion.’ But it has already changed the conversation about abortion, horrifying even the pro-Roe Kennedy with the procedure’s near equivalence to infanticide.”

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