Alito gets to work

[solarbird]

I don't have a lot to say about this remarkable decision, upholding this law that doesn't even include the barest minimums of decency, the health exemption for the woman or a foetus that hasn't even developed a brain, this law that places the health - and, in reality, the life - of an extant woman, a person of actual life, below that of a "potential life" - other than to say that you could certainly see it coming. There's an anti-abortion majority on the Supreme Court now, as I described several months ago; Mr. Alito has started on the job he was appointed to do, switching the court from a bare 5-4 pro-rights majority to a bare 5-4 majority against, this person supposedly so reverent of precedent throwing out that respect at the first opportunity, exactly as intended, and exactly as predicted.

Women will be hurt, and women will die, because of this law and the ruling upholding it. No, it won't be thousands of women dying in the streets. it'll be a few a year, until the next law gets passed, when it will be more, and then the next, and it'll be a lot more. But it will still be women dying for the sake of someone else's morality. And as far as I can tell, the overwhelming majority of the people who back this law are just fine with that.

The theoconservatives are, of course, thrilled. They aren't stupid. But I'm still waiting for a lot of that reaction to finish come in. Meanwhile, here are a lot of other people pointing out some of the new realities.

From naamah_darling's post, Animals:

You know, I thought something was wrong this morning. I woke up and discovered to my shock and horror that, overnight, I had become an animal.

Oh, I still look the same and everything, but I am told that I don't have even rudimentary intelligence, and that I am not valuable on an individual level.

See, the Supreme Court thinks that women can't be trusted to make their own decisions about their bodies, even with the aid of medical professionals. ... Banning one procedure, no matter how morally troubling some people find it, says that they don't trust women. Period. They don't trust women to know when it is necessary, what is best for them. They don't think women ought to be trusted with that choice.

From Father Knows Best: Dr. Kennedy's magic prescription for indecisive women:

What hasn't changed is that Anthony Kennedy finds partial-birth abortion really disgusting. We saw that in his dissent in Stenberg. That's what animates and drives his decision. His opinion blossoms from the premise that if all women were as sensitive as he is about the fundamental awfulness of this procedure, they'd all refuse to undergo it. Since they aren't, he'll decide for them.

But for Kennedy only those women who regret the decision to abort illuminate some deeper truth. And Kennedy's solution for these flip-flopping women is elegant. Protect them from the truth. ... But as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg points out in dissent, Kennedy doesn't propose giving women more information about partial-birth abortion procedures. He says it's up to the Congress and the courts to substitute their judgment and ban the procedures altogether. ("I'm sorry Bianca, there is a procedure out there that may be safer for you, but some day, you will thank me for sparing you from it.")

From the Bitch Ph.D. post, "Do You Trust Women?":

The bottom line about abortion is this. Do you trust women to make their own moral judgments? If you are anti-abortion, then no. You do not. You have an absolute moral position that you don't trust anyone to question, and therefore you think that abortion should be illegal.

Think about the hubris of that. Your judgment of some hypothetical scenario is more reliable than some woman's judgment about her own, very real, life situation?

And you think that's not sexist? That that doesn't demonstrate, at bottom, a distrust of women? A blindness to their equality? A reluctance to give up control over someone else's decision?

Because if you cannot see that, then I don't care who you are. Male, female, feminist, reactionary asshole. You are acting as a conduit for a social distrust of women so strong that it's almost invisible, that it gets read as "normal." The fact that abortion is even a debate in this country demonstrates that we do not trust women.

From ysabel, in an untitled public post:

And at some point, showing no respect for the right to life of a thinking human being under the guise of respecting the supposed rights of an already dead fetus? Calling that pro-life is beyond hypocrisy, it's disgusting.

But, as naamah_darling so eloquently pointed out, what do I know? I'm a fucking animal.

From Gretchen Voss, in My Late-Term Abortion, one of the people this bill targets:

President Bush's attempt to ban partial-birth abortions threatens all late-term procedures. But in my case, everyone said it was the right thing to do — even my Catholic father and Republican father-in-law.

[...]

Instead of cinnamon and spice, our child came with technical terms like hydrocephalus and spina bifida. The spine, she said, had not closed properly, and because of the location of the opening, it was as bad as it got. What they knew -- that the baby would certainly be paralyzed and incontinent, that the baby's brain was being tugged against the opening in the base of the skull and the cranium was full of fluid -- was awful. What they didn't know -- whether the baby would live at all, and if so, with what sort of mental and developmental defects -- was devastating. Countless surgeries would be required if the baby did live. None of them would repair the damage that was already done.

[...]

So this is our story -- mine, my husband's, and our baby's. It's not a story I ever thought I'd share with a mass audience, because, frankly, it's nobody's business. But now it is.

[...]

At the heart of the debate is a term that legislators concocted. They created a nonexistent procedure -- partial-birth abortion -- and then banned it. They then gave it such a purposely vague definition that, according to abortion providers as well as the Supreme Court, which ruled a similar law in Nebraska unconstitutional, it could apply to all abortions after the first trimester.

[...]

So what does it all really mean? It means that all abortions after the first trimester could be outlawed. No matter if the fetus has severe birth defects, including those incompatible with life (many of which cannot be detected until well into the second trimester). No matter if the mother would be forced to have, for example, a kidney transplant or a hysterectomy if she continued with the pregnancy. (Legislators did not provide a health exception for the woman, arguing that it would provide too big a loophole.)

[...]

But even the short-term situation is bleak. The doctor who performed my termination has stopped doing the procedure, worried that he might get caught up in a lawsuit. He is not a lawyer or a politician, and he doesn't know what this law means for him right now. "I may go to jail for two years," he tells me. "They can suspend my medical license. It would cost me a fortune to have a lawyer to defend me."

All I can say to end this post is that enforced pregnancy is still slavery, no matter you strongly you want to pretend otherwise, and what words of morality you weave around it. If you're for that, and don't like how I put it, too fucking bad. Deal.

Comments

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

This ruling was the worst news this week, and that's saying something.

[firni.livejournal.com]

You have to admit, we saw this shit coming with Shrub packing the Supreme Court with his lackeys.

I hope O'Connor is enjoying her retirement.

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

Well, since O'Connor retired to spend time with her Alzheimer's inflicted husband, she's probably NOT enjoying her retirement. I think she would have stayed on otherwise.

[firni.livejournal.com]

Bah. In this case, you take one for the team and hire a nurse, so your gender doesn't get boned by Shrub lackeys.

Then again, look who I'm married to.

[loopback.livejournal.com]

i greatly look forward to seeing the various right wing lapdogs who claim to be 'progressively minded, but see value in this conservative government' spin this to be 'not a big deal' and further bury what little credibility and honor they might've had underneath the avalanche of bullshit they've been shoveling for the last few years.

[solarbird]

Who in particular do you have in mind, and why do you think they'd do that? It's being spun as a non-issue by the kind of people I kind of suspect you include as in that list of those guys. "It's not a big deal." WRONG

[firni.livejournal.com]

I can think of at least one person!

[stickmaker.livejournal.com]

The comments of several doctors in re. this ruling were aired last night on _All Things Considered_. All were appalled - even outraged - that politicians and lawyers were making medical decisions. Most said they'd ignore the law. Some said they would justify doing so because what it describes is not what they do.

So, we're back to civil disobedience.