First we control the women. (Warning: politics ahead.)

[elbales]

Oh, yes. Have you read the news today? Thanks to the Supreme Court of the United States, I am well on the way to becoming a second-class citizen. Thanks, Supreme Court!

Court Backs Ban on Abortion Procedure
By MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, April 18, 2007

(04-18) 10:39 PDT WASHINGTON (AP) --
The Supreme Court's conservative majority handed anti-abortion forces a major victory Wednesday in a decision that bans a controversial abortion procedure and set the stage for further restrictions.

For the first time since the court established a woman's right to an abortion in 1973, the justices upheld a nationwide ban on a specific abortion method, labeled partial-birth abortion by its opponents.

The 5-4 decision written by Justice Anthony Kennedy 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 law is constitutional despite not containing an exception that would allow the procedure if needed to preserve a woman's health, Kennedy said. "The law need not give abortion doctors unfettered choice in the course of their medical practice," he wrote in the majority opinion.

Doctors who violate the law face up to two years in federal prison.

"The law need not give abortion doctors unfettered choice in the course of their medical practice." Right. Because lawyers and politicians know so much more about obstetrics and gynecology than obstetricians and gynecologists.

Anthony Kennedy? FUCK YOU.
 

Comments

[dizzyditz.livejournal.com]

That majorly blows and is scary as fuck.

[elbales]

Yep.

...So hey, how's the women's rights scene in Israel? <_<

[dizzyditz.livejournal.com]

Funny you should ask. If you are ultra-religious your community makes sure that you have no rights at all, and if you are secular your rights are pretty good. I think abortion is looked on as a basic human right there. But still, the condition of a significant portion of the population is pretty poor. Amongst the orthodox in Israel you cannot even get a divorce without your husband's permission. There are two courts in Israel - the secular courts and the religious courts. So if you have the misfortune to be religious, you're pretty much screwed by laws written 3,000 years ago.

[poetinthemaking.livejournal.com]

I have been thinking about it all afternoon. It's terrifying; also conveniently kept hush-hush in favor of the VT stuff. I am by NO MEANS saying that we should not be reading or heading about VT, it's just convenient that the decision was rendered while there was something to focus on in the news that is NOT this decision.

[elbales]

Yeah, innit? The Necons/Republicans are good at that.

Cabinet resignations? Wait 'til the day after the election. (Though any pol would do this, to be fair.)

Scary legislation passed? Somehow it barely gets media attention.

Even this announcement. You have to wonder if the White House didn't grab the opportunity of this really sad but really-not-all-that-newsworthy event to pressure the Court to announce when it did. I know that sounds paranoid, but there's a pattern of that kind of thing in the Bush Administration.

[chicklet73.livejournal.com]

Grrr.