This is an encouraging victory for life.
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court upheld the nationwide ban on a controversial abortion procedure Wednesday, handing abortion opponents the long-awaited victory they expected from a more conservative bench.
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.
The opponents of the act "have not demonstrated that the Act would be unconstitutional in a large fraction of relevant cases," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion.
The administration had defended the law as drawing a bright line between abortion and infanticide.
Reacting to the ruling, Bush said that it affirms the progress his administration has made to uphold the "sanctity of life."
"I am pleased that the Supreme Court has upheld a law that prohibits the abhorrent procedure of partial birth abortion," he said. "Today's decision affirms that the Constitution does not stand in the way of the people's representatives enacting laws reflecting the compassion and humanity of America."
The decision pitted the court's conservatives against its liberals, with President Bush's two appointees, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, siding with the majority.
Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia also were in the majority.
It was the first time the court banned a specific procedure in a case over how — not whether — to perform an abortion.
Culture of Death proponents are beside themselves.
NARAL considers the decision an attack on freedom.
Understandably, Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in America, denounced the ruling.
It claims the decision "Threatens Women's Health; Criminalizes Safe, Early Abortions."
No, it doesn't.
It criminalizes a ghastly procedure, one that's sometimes indistinguishable from infanticide.
..."Today's decision is alarming," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in dissent. She said the ruling "refuses to take ... seriously" previous Supreme Court decisions on abortion.
Ginsburg said the latest decision "tolerates, indeed applauds, federal intervention to ban nationwide a procedure found necessary and proper in certain cases by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists."
...The procedure at issue involves partially removing the fetus intact from a woman's uterus, then crushing or cutting its skull to complete the abortion.
Abortion opponents say the law will not reduce the number of abortions performed because an alternate method — dismembering the fetus in the uterus — is available and, indeed, much more common.
It's mind-boggling to me that people are troubled that a law prohibiting this gruesome late term procedure, "partially removing the fetus intact from a woman's uterus, then crushing or cutting its skull to complete the abortion," has been upheld.
Reread the description of the procedure. It's a violent act.
There has been so much discussion in the country the past few days about violence.
For instance, during an event in Milwaukee, Barack Obama compared the horrific, cold-blooded murders at Virginia Tech with the "verbal violence" of Don Imus.
Although Obama is clearly misguided, everyone seems to be speaking out against the violence that permeates our culture.
I think it's a hopeful sign that the Supreme Court has ruled against the violence of partial birth abortion.
Personally, I find the "common" practice of "dismembering the fetus in the uterus" an unacceptable act of violence as well, and the sign of a sick society.
I think the following verbal gymnastics are very telling.
...Doctors most often refer to the procedure as a dilation and extraction or an intact dilation and evacuation abortion.
Those terms are no less inflammatory than calling it partial birth abortion.
In a way, I think they're more disturbing because they completely dehumanize the procedure.
"Dilation and extraction" or "intact dilation and evacuation" are attempts to deflect from what's actually happening -- brutally murdering a human being.
The Supreme Court got it right today.
The ruling is a step toward a less violent America.
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So far, I haven't found any response to the ruling from Russ Feingold, rabid supporter of partial birth abortion.
On September 26, 1996, during debate on partial birth abortion, Feingold revealed just how extreme he is.
Transcript
Sen. Santorum: Will the Senator from Wisconsin yield for a question?
Sen. Feingold: I will.
Sen. Santorum: The Senator from Wisconsin says that this decision should be left up to the mother and the doctor, as if there is absolutely no limit that could be placed on what decision that they make with respect to that. And the Senator from California [Sen. Barbara Boxer] is going up to advise you of what my question is going to be, and I will ask it anyway. And my question is this: that if that baby were delivered breech style and everything was delivered except for the head, and for some reason that that baby's head would slip out -- that the baby was completely delivered -- would it then still be up to the doctor and the mother to decide whether to kill that baby?
Sen. Feingold: I would simply answer your question by saying under the Boxer amendment, the standard of saying it has to be a determination, by a doctor, of health of the mother, is a sufficient standard that would apply to that situation. And that would be an adequate standard.
Sen. Santorum: That doesn't answer the question. Let's assume that this procedure is being performed for the reason that you've stated, and the head is accidentally delivered. Would you allow the doctor to kill the baby?
Sen. Feingold: I am not the person to be answering that question. That is a question that should be answered by a doctor, and by the woman who receives advice from the doctor. And neither I, nor is the Senator from Pennsylvania, truly competent to answer those questions. That is why we should not be making those decisions here on the floor of the Senate.
That exchange is chilling, so chilling that Feingold had the Congressional Record altered.
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