The Abortion Ruling: "The Legal Landscape Has Changed"

By: Andrew Cohen
Topics: Field Notes

(CBS)

Lawyer Andrew Cohen analyzes legal affairs for CBS News and CBSNews.com.

I suspect that a great many people who will be forming opinions in the next few hours and days about the United States Supreme Court's landmark abortion ruling will not spend the time necessary to read through and truly understand both the import of the decision and the language and rationale employed by the Justices in reaching it. Both are truly extraordinary.

Not only has abortion law in this country taken a sudden and sharp turn to the right but the majority opinion by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy (writing for five) and the dissenting opinion by Justice Ruth B. Ginsburg (writing for four) presage a pitched battle going forward on this topic. Forget all the happy talk about the new Chief Justice, John J. Roberts, Jr., bringing peace and karma to the High Court. Just read the Ginsburg dissent and you'll know why that's no longer an option.

Indeed, it is no coincidence that Ginsburg, the lone remaining woman on the Court, would have been chosen to write the dissent on behalf of three of her colleagues. When you read her analysis—an "alarming" decision, she writes-- you can almost hear her fury as she describes what she perceives to be the majority's warped reliance upon "ancient notions" of women's rights that include the "antiabortion shibboleth" that "women who have abortions come to regret them."

It also is no coincidence that Wednesday's ruling played out as it did only after the first female Supreme Court Justice, Sandra Day O'Connor, retired and was replaced by Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. Alito voted with the Court's majority today. O'Connor almost certainly would not have done so—and, in fact, did not do so in 2000 when a similar Congressional effort to ban the so-called "partial birth" abortion procedure failed to get five votes.

Do yourself and everyone else a favor. Read the ruling, carefully and thoroughly, before you grab hold strongly of your opinion of it. There is both more in it that meets the eye and less; more poetry than you'd expect and certainly more emotion than we need. No matter which side of the roiling debate you find yourself on, surely we all should be able to agree that after today the whole legal landscape on abortion has changed.

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by nuzreporter April 19, 2007 6:38 PM EDT: Fetuses don't pay taxes or vote. Why should liberals care about them?; Reply to this comment


by keith0lby April 19, 2007 10:24 AM EDT: Instead of a court decision, hopefully this will
happen in American soon.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6558823.stm

Simply, an abortion crisis is looming in Britain
because most doctors don't want to end a potential
life.

This is a wake up call to feminist pundits and elitist media scribes! Quit your day jobs and start training now in the exciting field of abortion. Because soon that's all these poor women will have to turn to. The DOCTORS don't want to kill fetuses, they're trained to save lives.

So now it's up to the media...

Got an unwanted pregancy, CBS news take care of it.; Reply to this comment


by skeezix06 April 18, 2007 10:01 PM EDT: 73 pages of legal terminology and headache inducing legalese...

Forget for a moment that you're an attorney and think about what you're asking those of us who are not attorneys. I considered printing it off but again, that's 73 pages of ink and paper. Not practical, not logical, possibly not even sane. Certainly very few of us will ever see anything remotely resembling "poetry" in this ruling.

Also, I'm not to sure who you thought would be happy-talking about Roberts. Every democrat on the grassroots level who I talked to opposed his nomination. If you thought that, you were only fooling yourself.

Something else: I'm a little confused about what you think your point is when you state " we should all be able to agree the whole legal landscape on abortion has changed". Is agreement more important than the ruling and the effect that it will have? Were we supposed to be bored with Roe v. Wade? Should we be happy that an almost totally male Supreme Court has decided that women need men's guidance to make the "correct" decision? Ginsberg is right. There is no respect for women in this ruling. There doesn't appear to be a heck of a lot of respect for women in your opinion either. I've experienced a pregnancy gone horribly wrong. Have you?; Reply to this comment