Supreme Court Screws Women

By a vote of 5-4, the Supreme Court has today upheld the reactionary Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act, signed by President Bush back in 2003. Justice Kennedy appears to have been the swing vote giving the conservatives their first major anti-abortion victory in years.

Scott Lemieux over at The American Prospect writes that Justice Stevens in Stenberg v Carhart (2000) said "everything that needs to be said about the constitutionality of these laws". (Tip of the hat to mcjoan at Daily Kos for noting Scott's posting.) From Justice Stevens' concurrence in that decision:

The rhetoric is almost, but not quite, loud enough to obscure the quiet fact that during the past 27 years, the central holding of Roe v. Wade, has been endorsed by all but 4 of the 17 Justices who have addressed the issue. That holding -- that the word "liberty" in the Fourteenth Amendment includes a woman's right to make this difficult and extremely personal decision -- makes it impossible for me to understand how a State has any legitimate interest in requiring a doctor to follow any procedure other than the one that he or she reasonably believes will best protect the woman in her exercise of this constitutional liberty.

Eugene over at Daily Kos has a diary that argues the Democratic Party should immediately initiate an overturn of the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act. I most heartily concur.