Justice Kennedy - Protector of Women with Bad Judgment
I’ve been insanely busy and haven’t had time to post lately. I find myself tonight in the strange position of having caught up on my work and waiting to catch a red-eye back home. Reading through the day’s news I couldn’t help but dive into the details of the recent SCOTUS ruling on partial birth abortions. I don’t know whether it’s because the children of the baby boomers are themselves having children or because I’ve got one of my own that I am noticing more infants and toddlers.
Getting back to the case…I think Justice Kennedy is off his rocker. He actually supported the opinion with the following quotation (via NYT):
“whatever one’s views concerning the Casey joint opinion, it is evident a premise central to its conclusion — that the government has a legitimate and substantial interest in preserving and promoting fetal life — would be repudiated were the court now to affirm the judgments of the courts of appeals”
I’m continuously confounded at the conservative belief that that the government has no business in personal lives….except when it comes to women’s medical decisions concerning pregnancy. Here’s another one (again via NYT…any chance they’re biased?):
“It is self-evident that a mother who comes to regret her choice to abort must struggle with grief more anguished and sorrow more profound when she learns, only after the event, what she once did not know: that she allowed a doctor to pierce the skull and vacuum the fast-developing brain of her unborn child, a child assuming the human form.”
Curious that the only woman on the court disagreed: “this way of thinking reflects ancient notions of women’s place in the family and under the Constitution — ideas that have long since been discredited.”
And that in the most recent prior decision striking down a similar Nevada law the other woman on the court sided with the majority, supporting a woman’s right to choose.