A Good Day

The Supreme Court today upheld the 2003 Congressional ban on the procedure known as Partial-birth Abortion:

The Supreme Court upheld the nationwide ban on a controversial abortion procedure Wednesday, handing abortion opponents the long-awaited victory they expected from a more conservative bench.

The 5-4 ruling said the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act that Congress passed and President Bush signed into law in 2003 does not violate a woman's constitutional right to an abortion.

The opponents of the act "have not demonstrated that the Act would be unconstitutional in a large fraction of relevant cases," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion.
The decision pitted the court's conservatives against its liberals, with President Bush's two appointees, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, siding with the majority.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia also were in the majority.

It was the first time the court banned a specific procedure in a case over how - not whether - to perform an abortion.

Abortion rights groups have said the procedure sometimes is the safest for a woman. They also said that such a ruling could threaten most abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy, although government lawyers and others who favor the ban said there are alternate, more widely used procedures that remain legal.

What of course they've never acknowledged is the barbarity of the act. It is that barbarity that I--and most conservatives who cared about this--have argued to ban.

It seems that at least in analysis coming from some corners, that the door is still open to a return to this procedure under a more and better-clarified statute. Perhaps, perhaps not.

If so, at least one person will be comforted. The rest of us can cross the bridge when we get to it.