Who needs choices or the constitution?

The Supreme Court ruling a few months ago, on April 18th, had more dangerous and devastating implications than any of its defenders comprehended. From the justices who signed the majority opinion to the pro-life organizations that praised their decision, the supporters of upholding this ban did know not the grim reality of what had actually occurred. Regardless of what exact minority of women in their third trimester have resorted to this method, the implications of the Supreme Court ruling are unabated.
It is true that there are other safe alternatives to the criminalized intact dilation and extraction method (the bill refers to it as "partial birth abortion"). Yet a number of doctors feel most comfortable with this method, and if they cannot use it, will have to perform a method in which they are less accurate and more prone to make life-threatening mistakes. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists also added that intact dilation and extraction is the "safest and offers significant benefits for women suffering from certain conditions." These certain conditions "make non-intact D& E especially dangerous." Conditions such as these, which doctors but not politicians and judiciaries can comprehend, are a fine example of why the government should keep itself from entering and ignorantly policing the medical realm.
Constitutionally, many argue, Congress cannot regulate medicine unless it is considered interstate commerce. The thought that medicine could be analogous to agriculture— even when using the argument that some tools, patients, and doctors cross state lines—is an illogical stretch. Although vague ideas about medical practices have passed through the Court before, the "partial birth abortion" case is different in character because of its referral to one specific procedure. Congress clearly overstepped their Constitutional powers in this case, and the Supreme Court failed to check it.
The Supreme Court disregarded any lower federal court rulings made on the issue, and even threw out the window the 1973 Roe v. Wade result, which required that abortion regulations must allow exceptions in order to protect the health of the woman. Under the upheld ban, a doctor must decided if the woman's life in endanger; if only her health is on the line when he performs the dilation and extraction, the doctor can be sent to jail. This puts extreme unnecessary pressure on doctors, asking them to make sure she is about to die, and if they miscalculate in either direction, they face a killing an innocent patient, or spending time in jail for insuring her safety. The emphasis has switched from being on the well-being woman to the consequences for the fetus, only leaving the woman's death as the last remaining repercussion.
Not more comforting that this "rock and a hard place" condition, the reasoning of the majority's written case reveals bigotry by means of sexism. Justice Kennedy claimed that upholding this ban was good for women--it would protect them from something they probably did not fully understand (as though he himself did) and that their actions without the ban would most likely cause them regret after it was too late. It seemed that our society was past the despicable generalizations that women are erratic and in need of protection from men, but not in the mind of dinosaur Justice Kennedy. The majority opinion's chauvinistic implications are enough to alone anger the females of America.
Perhaps the worst outcome of this verdict was that it set precedence for future abortion rulings. With help from the appointments made by President Bush, the bench has become more conservative than it has been in decades. The precedence that the "partial birth abortion" decision has set is multifaceted. First, it has changed the way in which abortion is allowed to be discussed by the US government. Rather than speaking in terms of privacy, the debate consisted of small parts of the specific procedure, defining what 'fully informed consent' meant, and whether a fetus feels pain. These abstract, ambiguous topics, not pertaining to law or the constitution, are now legitimate discussions for legislators and judiciaries when debating the controversial topic of abortion.
The justices in concurrence with the ruling seemed to say that specific restrictions on abortion are constitutional now, contrary to the past precedence where the Supreme Court has never upheld any prohibition on specific abortion types. This ruling could supply energy in lawmakers and the pro-life advocates that would lead to further restrictions, which under the radical new precedence, could now easily be upheld.
A colossal misstep has been taken, which not only undermines the integrity and legitimacy of the current Supreme Court, but also causes innocent practicing doctors and patients varying degrees of anguish, ranging from jail time to the pregnant woman's unnecessary death. Worst of all, it threatens the important 1973 decision that guaranteed America a right to privacy in its reproductive matters, and left the world of medicine in the hands of the medical experts.

-Katherine Heflin