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The Supreme Court came down with a big decision that represents a turning back from the protection of a woman's right to have an abortion. As friends have pointed out, this right was affirmed but this decision works from the proposition that rights are not absolute. In particular, the ban on so-called partial-birth abortions has been upheld.
Dr. Cass Sunstein, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School, makes the interesting argument that Justice Ginsburg's dissent in the case may prove to have more lasting legal life than the majority decision, re-casting the right to have an abortion in terms of women's equality rather than the more nebulous right of privacy:
On a personal note, I suppose this argument based on women's equality could work, but I hate the idea of weakening the right of privacy, which protects the idea that government needs to keep its big nose out of our bedroom. But you take what you can get, and individual rights are an endangered legal species these days.
(Source: Cass R. Sunstein for The Los Angeles Times)
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The Supreme Court came down with a big decision that represents a turning back from the protection of a woman's right to have an abortion. As friends have pointed out, this right was affirmed but this decision works from the proposition that rights are not absolute. In particular, the ban on so-called partial-birth abortions has been upheld.
Dr. Cass Sunstein, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School, makes the interesting argument that Justice Ginsburg's dissent in the case may prove to have more lasting legal life than the majority decision, re-casting the right to have an abortion in terms of women's equality rather than the more nebulous right of privacy:
IN THE LONG RUN, the most important part of the Supreme Court's ruling on "partial-birth" abortions may not be Justice Anthony M. Kennedy's opinion for the majority. It might well be Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's dissent, which attempts, for the first time in the court's history, to justify the right to abortion squarely in terms of women's equality rather than privacy.In particular, Justice Ginsburg argues that, at a minimum, restrictions on abortions must protect a woman's health. The ban on partial-birth abortions that the Court upheld is noted for not even allowing an exception for the health of the mother, which marks this ban as being rather hard.
... In this week's case, Ginsburg, now the only woman on the court, attempted to re-conceive the foundations of the abortion right, basing it on well-established constitutional principles of equality. Borrowing from her 1985 argument, she said that legal challenges to restrictions on abortion procedures "do not seek to vindicate some generalized notion of privacy; rather, they center on a woman's autonomy to determine her life's course, and thus to enjoy equal citizenship stature."
On a personal note, I suppose this argument based on women's equality could work, but I hate the idea of weakening the right of privacy, which protects the idea that government needs to keep its big nose out of our bedroom. But you take what you can get, and individual rights are an endangered legal species these days.
(Source: Cass R. Sunstein for The Los Angeles Times)
