Fetuses
Michael Novak at The Corner:
The argument of the Majority was based exclusively on reason and the law, not on faith and not on religion — neither Protestant, nor Catholic, nor Jewish. The Majority carefully describes the rare procedure that is now banned, and if that procedure is not cruel and unusual punishment, perpetrated upon a human individual, with its own distinctive DNA, then what is?
This pertains directly to the point I made yesterday. It's no secret to anybody that the reason Republicans passed the PBA Ban Act (and that five Supreme Court Justices upheld it) is that they think a partial birth abortion (dilation and extraction) kills a human. And if it kills a human then the law is sort of neither here nor there, because abortion should--on their terms--be constitutionally prohibited. And they should stick, as some do, to that argument alone.
A friend of mine and I were discussing this just yesterday and, applying my abortion logic to gun control, he made the point that, if you think (as I do) that guns should be illegal in almost all cases, then incremental moves like the Brady Bill are--again, using my logic--about political utility and not honest, abstract policy. And even though there are important differences between the two issues, I think this is right. Which is why I favor the idea of overturning the second amendment. No need to spend legislative capital banning things that would be/ought to be unconstitutional in the first place. Wish me luck on that one.
Update: Brad Plumer points out that, in theory, PBA Ban Act supporters might simply think that a fetus becomes human only after it has been extracted from the womb. I grant that. I also grant if that's actually what they think (which it clearly is not) then they should say so. And then we could limit the abortion fight to this issue and only this issue from here on out.
Comments
This fight is much bigger (see the excellent analysis at Balkinization by Marty Lederman and Jack Balkin (both Con Law experts, at Georgetown and Yale, respectively). [I tried to provide a HTML link above, but apparently it is not allowed here.]
The basis of the majority opinion rests not on the fetus, but on the poor confused female host of the fetus. Since the majority KNOWS she will regret abortion and therefore can't give informed consent, she must be prohibited from having abortion performed!
It doesn't matter that the alternative procedure involved dismembering the fetus in the womb, piece by piece, before it sees the light of day.
(BTW: I think it might be a good idea to enable HTML links in comments, since linkless references are kinda useless on blogs. )
Duly noted. HTML enabled.
As to the issue, the ruling itself only makes me think that conservatives are avoiding the fetus question because they KNOW that once this becomes about the fetus, they're going to be practically forced to argue for a universal ban.
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