Unborn Child
Pardon me if I’m not dancing in the streets over yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling in Gonzales v. Carhart.
Not that I disagree with the decision. It’s ok as far as it goes, which is not too far. All it says is that this particular statute, which seeks to ban a medical procedure by which a fully-developed viable unborn child is yanked feet-first through the birth canal until its head is locked in the cervix, whereupon its skull is pierced and brains vacuumed out until, presumably, death occurs, is not UNCONSTITUTIONAL on its face.
It still might be unconstitutional in some cases, of course, and there are other, unbanned, methods available which would allow for the same result, so what’s the big deal suggests the majority, while the shrill voices of the dissenters (and ALL the candidates for president in the party of Jefferson) are left kicking and screaming like, well, a new-born baby.
Roe v. Wade was fairly new when I was in law school and even the most radical left-wing card-carrying-member-of-the-ACLU law professor wasn’t convinced it was good law, nor good policy. I remember him explaining the “viability” issue left open by the court. (You may recall that Roe divided a baby into three trimesters and declared that no regulation could take place for the first trimester, some for the second, and then marked the beginning of the third trimester as when “viability” happens and thus a stronger governmental interest is created).
The Professor pointed out that advances in science and medicine were already moving back the viability time clock and that we could expect future courts to narrow the Roe decision without having to overturn it.
Which shows that prophecy is a difficult business when dealing with a body like the Supreme Court which has the power to make its own rules and public policy as it goes along.
So why not just say what is obvious to nearly everyone: that a fully-developed fetus which unquestionably could survive and thrive outside the womb has every bit as much right to life as nine ladies and gentlemen wearing black robes?
I said fetus there deliberately.
The thing that sent dissenter Justice Ginsburg into apoplexy yesterday? Justice Kennedy continuously referred to the victim of this grim and ghastly barbarism as an “unborn child”.
And therein appears the very first crack in 34 years in this wall of madness.
