April 28, 2007
SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE?:
Sex, Life, and Videotape: Ultrasound and the future of abortion. (William Saletan, April 28, 2007, Slate)
Last week, pro-lifers won their biggest victory in 40 years: a Supreme Court decision upholding the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. This week, they announced their next target. Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee, concluded that the court's ruling "should give encouragement to the legislators who are pursuing other types of regulation," particularly bills that "require the abortionist to offer the woman an opportunity to view an ultrasound" of her fetus.For pro-lifers, this segue is logical. For the court, it means trouble. It threatens to unravel the latest judicial compromise and, with it, Roe v. Wade. In its April 18 ruling, the court treated abortion like an obscenity—something that could be done, but not out in the open. Partial-birth abortions, the court reasoned, could be banned because they occur outside the woman's body. Other abortions need not be outlawed, since the womb conceals them.
Ultrasound dissolves this distinction. It offers to make every fetus and every abortion visible. It forces the court to renounce either the partial-birth ban or the right to abortion.
Like an obscenity? Posted by Orrin Judd at April 28, 2007 7:46 AM
Better yet, make the abortionists screen the Silent Scream for their "patients".
Posted by: Jim in Chicago at April 28, 2007 9:24 AMAccording to Nancy Pelosi, the Court is God. So why isn't the Left obeying?
Posted by: jim hamlen at April 28, 2007 10:51 AMThere is a scene in Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings in which Arwen is riding ro the Gray Havens, to board a ship to Elvenhome. She sees, as in a vision, the reproachful stare of a boy, the son she will never have if she leaves: she goes back.
Ultrasound counselling partakes of the power of that scene. Let the would-be baby-killers look their children in the eyes, and then pull the trigger, if they dare.
Posted by: Lou Gots at April 28, 2007 11:16 AMthe court treated abortion like an obscenity—something that could be done, but not out in the open. Partial-birth abortions, the court reasoned, could be banned because they occur outside the woman's body.
Another case of stuck-on-stupid. The Court only said the law banning partial-birth abortion was not unconstitutional. Congress, if it dares, can pass a law specifically legalizing partial-birth abortion. The Court will deem that not unconstitutional either. But spineless Reid and other Dems want to hide behind the Court. Since Sandy left, the skirt has gotten shorter.
Btw: what is the difference between infanticide and abortions of viable fetuses that "occur outside the woman's body"?
The left hysteria about this ruling is quite ironic because it's actually more pro-abortion than the original Roe decision. Remember "trimesters"? IIRC, Roe said it was permissible to ban abortions in the third trimester, and it was later decisions that overturned even that restriction.
Posted by: PapayaSF at April 28, 2007 4:33 PMLou:
That vignette reminds me of a similar one - the scene in the STAR TREK movie (the first Next Generation film) where Picard is absorbed by the Nexus (a dimensional dream-world where the deepest wishes come true). He suddenly discovers he has 4 children and a lovely wife and a French estate. They are getting ready to have Christmas dinner. He is happy.
Of course, duty wins out and he realizes it isn't his "reality". But I wonder how many viewers were cut to the quick when they saw such a wish (and couldn't hide their own, if only for a moment).
Posted by: ratbert at April 29, 2007 7:28 AM