The Bushies at Play

You can see that daddy Bush hasn't lost all of his ... um ... appeal in spite of his age. No wonder little George is always defensive. Of course he is no match for Mr. Cheney.

The rest of the pictorial tale of the Weekend at Kennebunkport is at Wonkette. Don't miss the part where The President is being chased by a bike.

Mr. Bush's Court Chips Away At Roe

I am quite unhappy to find that the Supreme Court upholds the "partial birth" abortion ban legislation in a 5-4 vote. Mr. Justice Kennedy voted with the majority. The entire decision (PDF) is here. Justice Ginsburg wrote an admirable and well reasoned dissenting opinion that includes the following bits.

the concerns expressed are untethered to any
ground genuinely serving the Government's interest in
preserving life. By allowing such concerns to carry the
day and case, overriding fundamental rights, the Court
dishonors our precedent.

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the Court invokes an antiabortion
shibboleth for which it concededly has no reliable
evidence: Women who have abortions come to regret their
choices, and consequently suffer from [s]evere depression
and loss of esteem. Because of women's fragile emotional state and because of the "bond of love the mother has for her child," the Court worries, doctors may
withhold information about the nature of the intact D&E
procedure. The solution the Court approves,
then, is not to require doctors to inform women,
accurately and adequately, of the different procedures and
their attendant risks. (States are free to enact laws to provide a
reasonable framework for a woman to make a decision
that has such profound and lasting meaning.). Instead,
the Court deprives women of the right to make an
autonomous choice, even at the expense of their safety.

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This way of thinking reflects ancient notions about
women's place in the family and under the Constitution --
ideas that have long since been discredited.

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The Court's hostility to the right Roe and
Casey secured is not concealed. Throughout, the opinion
refers to obstetrician-gynecologists and surgeons who
perform abortions not by the titles of their medical specialties,
but by the pejorative label "abortion doctor."A fetus is described as an "unborn
child," and as a "baby," ... and the reasoned medical judgments of highly
trained doctors are dismissed as "preferences" motivated
by "mere convenience,"

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In sum, the notion that the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban
Act furthers any legitimate governmental interest is, quite
simply, irrational. The Court's defense of the statute
provides no saving explanation. In candor, the Act, and
the Court's defense of it, cannot be understood as anything
other than an effort to chip away at a right declared again
and again by this Court and with increasing comprehension
of its centrality to women's lives. When "a statute burdens constitutional
rights and all that can be said on its behalf is that it
is the vehicle that legislators have chosen for expressing
their hostility to those rights, the burden is undue."

The only think I can say is that this might ensure a generation of Democratic presidents.

Blog for Choice Day, 2007

(I'm having trouble making the link to Bush v. Choice, sponsors of Blog for Choice day, to work. So it is here.)

In case you don't know, I live in the Washington DC metropolitan area. And this day is the "March for Life" day. They are all over, babies bussed in with their nuns from parochial schools. But whatever deity they believe in must have a hell of a sense of humor, causing Roe v. Wade to be decided in January. Today the high was in the 20s with a layer of ice over snow on everything. It does my heart good.

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Choice is essential for a lot of reasons that are essayworthy, but the one closest to my heart is that it is my body, my mother's body, my daughter's body. I am old enough to know a time when abortion wasn't legal, when women died with some regularity obtaining what we call back-alley abortions. They are called that because somebody knew somebody who knew somebody who worked in a room in the lousy part of town. A pregnant woman went alone, no support and no help. The fee might have been small but was most likely equivalent to a month's rent, not easy to come up with. Yet women went. Some survived, knowing not to breathe a word to anybody except the next women who whispered "Do you know ..."

To many it seems long ago and far away. To me, it was yesterday.

I've never told anyone this story. Most of you don't know my gender, marital status, or anything much about me. But it is way past time to say what matters. I was one of the lucky ones. I was married with children and terrified of another pregnancy. Three children under five was enough to make any woman terrified of another pregnancy. I was a regular and loyal user of sometimes unreliable birth control.

And I was late. One day, two days. There were no over-the-counter tests. Three days. Four days. At which point I discovered that my decision had already been made, one of those things I didn't know about myself until it was tested. Remember, abortion was illegal unless the life of the mother was in danger. I asked everybody I knew. And I found that if two psychiatrists testified that I would commit suicide if forced to carry a child to term, I could obtain a legal abortion.

Seven days, eight days. Through very good friends and with no disclosure to my then husband I lined up one psychiatrist. And had an appointment with a second. Day 12, my flow began. Maybe it was one of those little miscarriages or just a quirk in my system.

That day in 1973 when Roe v Wade was decided I knew I'd never go through that again. Nor would anyone else. I'd do almost anything to keep it that way.