ROE V. WADE AT CROSSROADS: Abortion foes are just one Supreme Court justice away from victory
In Newsweek.

Anyone who thinks abortion rights aren’t in serious jeopardy should consider the plight of Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.
Specter has been a Republican for 40 years. He’s in line to become chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee in January. He has voted to confirm every single one of President George W. Bush’s judicial nominees. Despite that record, angry conservatives are determined to block his rise to chairman. Why?
Because Specter supports abortion rights. And because he had the temerity to state the obvious: That Bush would have trouble winning Senate confirmation of any Supreme Court nominee who is notoriously anti-abortion rights. That’s a simple mathematical fact.
It takes only 51 of 100 Senate votes to confirm a judicial nominee. But it takes 60 votes to cut off debate and move to a confirmation vote. Come January, there will be 55 Republicans in the Senate. Do the math. That’s not enough to derail a determined Democratic filibuster. Specter said he was alluding to that numerical reality when he made the remark that has haunted him all week.
But conservative foes of abortion rights have been emboldened by the perception that they provided Bush’s margin of victory Nov. 2. They aren’t of a mind to tolerate even the barest hint of resistance to their agenda, which is reversal of Roe v. Wade. That would be a tragedy. It would strip women of the right to control their bodies and turn the clock back to the grisly days of back-alley abortions.
Bush has a choice to make. Option 1: He could opt for polarizing political warfare by nominating anti-abortion absolutists for the top court. He could push for a change in Senate filibuster rules to deprive Democrats of that time-honored tactic and rely on raw political power to beat back all opposition. Option 2: Do what he promised during the campaign – impose no abortion litmus test for judicial candidates, while nominating people who will strictly interpret the Constitution rather than legislating from the bench. That’s the better course…
Replacing Rehnquist, a solid vote against abortion rights, isn’t likely to alter the court balance. But that balance could tip decisively should any one of the abortion-rights supporters leave the bench. That includes Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, as well as swing voters David Souter, Sandra Day O’Connor and Anthony Kennedy, whose positions on abortion are less black and white.
The nation may be approaching a legal sea change that could end or sharply curtail a woman’s right to abortion. But change that profound should be approached through reasoned debate, not a political beat-down.

Continue reading →

A nice accomplishment indeed, courtesy of the Center for Reproductive Rights.

Federal judge blocks late-term abortion ban
By the Associated Press.

A federal judge blocked implementation of a federal ban on certain late-term abortions Wednesday, less than an hour after President Bush signed the measure into law.
“Congress and the president ignored the Supreme Court and women’s health in enacting this law,” said Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which filed the lawsuit to block the law.
“The Nebraska court’s order will protect doctors from facing prison for providing their patients with the best medical care.”
U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf issued a temporary restraining order, citing concerns that the law did not contain an exception to the ban for preserving the health of a woman seeking the abortion.
“While … Congress found that a health exception is not needed, it is, at the very least, problematic whether I should defer to such a conclusion when the Supreme Court has found otherwise,” Kopf said.
The judge stopped short of prohibiting the new law from being enforced nationwide…
Kopf did not immediately schedule the next hearing in the case, at which time he could decide whether to issue a preliminary injunction against implementation of the law.
The judge’s ruling followed a three-hour hearing in a lawsuit brought by abortion supporters trying to block the ban. The four doctors sought to block the ban of the procedure opponents call partial-birth abortion.
In making his ruling, Kopf referred to a legal challenge from Carhart that led to the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Nebraska’s partial-birth abortion ban in 2000. The high court said the Nebraska law and others like it were an “undue burden” on women’s rights.
“The Supreme Court, citing factual findings of eight different trial judges, appointed by four different presidents, and the considered opinion of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, has found a very similar law unconstitutional because it banned `partial-birth abortions’ with the requisite exception from the preservation of the health of the woman,” Kopf said…
Judge Kopf voiced his concerns at the start of the hearing. “It seems to me the law is highly suspect, if not a per se violation of the Constitution,” he said…
Kopf said he could find no record of a doctor who performs abortions in the second and third trimesters testifying before Congress on late-term abortions. “Isn’t that important if Congress was really interested in knowing about this procedure?” Kopf said.
The law also appears to have a “serious vagueness problem,” Kopf said.
Priscilla Smith, an attorney for the Center for Reproductive Rights, said that if the law is allowed to take effect “physicians across the country will risk imprisonment for providing abortion care in accordance with their best medical judgment.”

Continue reading →