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<\/p>\nAnd…didn’t we know this was coming?<\/p>\n
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From the Philadelphia Inquirer<\/a><\/p>\n Andy McCarthy comments at NRO<\/a><\/p>\n At Mirror of Justice, Robert Araujo, SJ comments, focusing on the NYTimes editorial in response to Carhart.<\/a><\/p>\n Michael Uhlman at FT:<\/a><\/p>\n Proponents of abortion will, of course, scream to the heavens that Roe<\/em> has been effectively eviscerated. Don\u2019t believe it for a minute. It is very much alive and well, as is Casey<\/em>. The Court, and the Court alone, remains the final judge of what may or may not constitute an undue burden. All the Court decided yesterday was (a) that there might be a valid legislative role in a very narrow category of late-term abortions; and (b) what constitutes an undue burden will have to await the specific application of the Act\u2019s provisions to particular facts.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re inclined to be optimistic, you might place some modest hope in the prospect that Kennedy\u2019s opinion opens the door ever so slightly to an examination of what fetal viability means. But I wouldn\u2019t count on it. Once the Court starts down that road, it will have to examine and discuss the characteristics of unborn children\u2014an undertaking it hitherto studiously avoided, and for good reason. Still, Carhart<\/em> is the first occasion in which a majority has even nodded in the direction that late-term abortions might be legally problematic. Roe<\/em> disingenuously implied as much, only to ensure that the implication was swallowed by the maternal health exception at all stages of fetal gestation. <\/p>\n Now for the not-so-good news. Justice Kennedy made it clear that maternal health remains a viable constitutional standard. Indeed, he all but invited litigation that would present that issue in specific circumstances. What may be slightly less clear today than two days ago is that the maternal health exception may not be an absolute trump. Only time will tell.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n Joseph Bottum:<\/a><\/p>\n 4. The law professor Jonathan Adler notes<\/a><\/u>: \u201cSenate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) was among those who denounced yesterday\u2019s Supreme Court ruling upholding the Federal Partial Birth Abortion Act. Commenting on the decision, Reid said, \u2018A lot of us wish that Alito weren\u2019t there and O\u2019Connor were there,\u2019 indicating his desire that there has been a fifth vote to invalidate the statute, as Justice O\u2019Connor had provided the fifth vote to invalidate Nebraska\u2019s partial-birth abortion ban in Stenberg v. Carhart<\/em>.\u201d There are several examples of politicians who voted for the partial-birth ban and then deplored the Supreme Court\u2019s upholding of the constitutionality of that ban\u2014and it\u2019s a deeply disheartening phenomenon. It means that these politicians didn\u2019t take their oaths seriously. It means they were only positioning themselves politically, hoping the Court would eventually bail them out. And it means that the pro-life credentials of these politicians are illusory.<\/p>\n 5. A \u201cchill wind is blowing from Rome,\u201d announced one leftist site in a blog post titled \u201cCatholics\u20145; The Rest of Us\u2014Nothing<\/a><\/u>.\u201d The five Catholic justices on the Supreme Court formed\u2014for the first time since Alito joined the Court\u2014the complete majority on a decision. I think that we\u2019re probably going to have to wait for the new fund-raising letters from NARAL and Planned Parenthood before we see the highest pitch of anti-Catholic rhetoric coming out of the Carhart<\/em> decision. But for those who can\u2019t wait, you can find the first groundswells here<\/a><\/u>, here<\/a><\/u>, here<\/a><\/u>, here<\/a><\/u>, here<\/a><\/u>, and here<\/a><\/u>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" And…didn’t we know this was coming? From the Philadelphia Inquirer Andy McCarthy comments at NRO At Mirror of Justice, Robert Araujo, SJ comments, focusing on the NYTimes editorial in response to Carhart. Michael Uhlman at FT: Proponents of abortion will, of course, scream to the heavens that Roe has been effectively eviscerated. Don\u2019t believe it…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n\n
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