I am feeling deeply dispirited today.
It's due, undoubtedly, to the news. I've intermittently heard more news about the Virginia Tech shootings, which is so horrifying and sad that I can hardly bear to listen.
And then there's the Supreme Court decision in Gonzales v. Carhart, in which by a 5-4 decision the Court upheld the validity of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003. You can read the full decision here, if you're so inclined, but be prepared to be discouraged. At least there's the well-written dissenting opinion authored by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg and joined by Justices Stevens, Souter and Breyer, which you can read here. Yay for those four thoughtful justices. If there's ever an example of how much damage a bad president's bad judicial appointments can do, this is it.
Alberto Gonzales gets a double role in my bad mood today. He not only promotes the Partial Birth Abortion Ban and is the named plaintiff above, but his testimony today was simply incredible. It's sort of like listening to George Bush Senior in the Iran-Contra hearings...either he's lying or he's so incredibly stupid and forgetful that he has no place acting as Attorney General. It was vaguely gratifying to hear virtually every senator who questioned him sounding skeptical and at times flat out incredulous. But as an indication of what is being allowed to happen at the top of our government, it's disgusting.
I'm going off to soak in a long bubble bath and read my british mystery novel. If there was ever a day where escape to another time and place was warranted, this is it.
thank you for doing my rant. this is why you got a thinking blog award!!!!
ReplyDeleteI don't get how anyone, being either pro-life or pro-choice can be for partial birth abortion. It doesn't even make sense to give the excuse of being for the woman's health, since the child is killed by the doctor as it's actually exiting the birth canal, so I'm not sure what it saves the woman from except having to birth a live child. Have you actually read how it's done? It's a horrific practice, if everyone in this country had to see the procedure done once I'm sure it would be stopped immediately. I understand that the fear is that if ANY rights are taken away, then it's one step closer to stopping legalized abortion. I don't ever see that happening, but I hope that partial birth abortion is done with forever.
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