The Gist

ASSAULT FROM THE COURT


Talk about terror. Buried in the endless sensational TV news coverage of the Virgina Tech shootings is the monumental story that could have enormous impact on all our lives and certainly will impact many women right away. This is Bush's tragic stamp on the Supreme Court, which is now making an about face on a woman's right to choose with this 5-4 decision -- the first step toward stripping away the right to abortion altogether.

The fact that Anthony Kennedy is now the swing vote and the decider -- a man who wrote on behalf of the majority that the government had a greater concern in what is happening inside a woman's body than the woman herself -- is something that should concern and outrage all of us. And that goes doubly for GLBT people, who want to keep the government out of our business. Gay rights victories at the high court have relied upon abortion rights victories, something that Sandra Day O'Connor -- the previous swing vote on abortion -- has affirmed. The Roberts Court, now with Alito firmly installed by Bush as well, is clearly well on its way to fulfilling 30 years of brutal work by religious conservatives to strip away the rights of women and others.

Most angering about this are those Democrats in the House and Senate who voted for the "Partial Birth Abortion Act" back in 2003 even though they likely didn't agree. Many believed it would be ruled unconstitutional in the courts and thus didn't want to expend political capital on an issue that the right had shaped hideously in the pliant media with distortions and emotional manipulations. Presidential contender Senator Joe Biden, among other Dems and so-called moderate Republicans, must be made to pay for this.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg wrote the stirring, important dissenting opinion -- which she read from the bench, underscoring the significance of this decision -- calling the decision "alarming" and articulating the fact that 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."