My 99 Cents

Katha Pollitt rips the Supreme Court for last week’s decision upholding the so called Partial Birth Abortion Act.  The Law forbids intact dilation and extraction abortions “and, in flagrant violation of Roe v. Wade, lacked an exception to preserve the health of the woman.”

“For the first time, the Supreme Court has ruled that the health of an actually existing human woman doesn’t matter, never mind Roe. Nor does a doctor’s judgment. What counts, according to Justice Kennedy’s majority decision, is that this particular method of abortion “devalues human life.” Besides, the woman, confused little flower nodding her head in the breeze, needs to be protected from regret, the “grief more anguished and sorrow more profound” that might come when she realizes the exact nature of the procedure. Regret! If that’s a criterion, no one could ever decide about anything.

This decision paves the way for future restrictions on a woman’s right to choose to terminate a pregnancy. It replaces the the expertise of physicians and the rights of women with the beliefs of 5 men who know nothing about either.

Here’s more, but read the whole thing in the Nation:

Beyond all this, it’s flatly outrageous that five men–five devout Catholic men, 56 percent of the court–can impose their will on women’s bodies, talking about “anatomical landmarks” as if a woman’s reproductive system were some kind of national park. None of them will ever be pregnant or want or need an abortion. That should have made them humble. I wonder if anyone reading this will live to see a Supreme Court in which a five-woman majority rules on an issue in which the reproductive lives of men, and only men, are at stake. Right now, Ruth Bader Ginsburg is all alone up there, watching her legacy go up in smoke.