Supreme Court upholds abortion ban

Like we didn’t see this coming: as predicted, the newly revamped the Supreme Court is doing its best to steadily chip away at women’s rights without actually having to lift a finger against Roe v. Wade, and in the process is opening the door for State legislatures to enact even more restrictive abortion legislation on a state by state basis. Today, the Supreme Court upheld President Bush’s ban on “partial-birth” abortion, setting a dangerous precedent which, until now, has always been avoided due to the fact that exceptions for the mother’s health are not present in this legislation. Feministing has a great post up on Justice Ruth Ginsberg’s dissent to the decision, as well as the fall-out in the media, including each presidential candidate’s response to this news. Of course, SCOTUS blog and Women’s Health News also have comprehensive posts on the subject. While I occassionally disagree whole-heartedly with ACOG on other matters, this is actually a situation where I applaud their stance on this subject: “partial-birth” abortion is a purposefully inflammatory media term, not a medical term, and the “partial-birth” abortion (i.e. non-intact dilation & evacuation) is rarely used in favor of the safer, more common practice of intact D&E, which is what is medically recommended by ACOG. Rulings which refuse to have exceptions for the woman’s health is placing current “morality” (which is transient, and can obviously change from one administration to the next) over the rights of an individual, which are constitutionally defined and supposedly untouchable. You can read the rest of ACOG’s amicus brief here. I’ll let others expound on what this means for the future of our country (I have a case-study due tomorrow which I must work on now), but this is indeed, a very sad new day.