The American Spectator

Reader Mail

(Page 5 of 13)

Whatever the reader reaction may be, you are very right to congratulate Justice Kennedy for providing information to the public that Planned Parenthood and NARAL would have liked to remain unknown. My reaction was that Justice Kennedy seemed to intend this shock. Yet, while it could very well be a point of conversion, or at least re-thinking, for some readers, I think that conversion was not his intent, nor a re-thinking of the issue at large. Justice Kennedy continues to be the elusive one. I'm sure you have much more of a finger to his pulse than I do. I have no idea what his intent was, but I have an inkling as to why he included the grotesque, medical description of D&E. The bottom line is that he needed to include it. Without it, the emptiness of his argument is much more exposed.

It seems to me that Thomas's statement that "the Court's abortion jurisprudence has no basis in the constitution" is the only tenable angle that can be taken in this case. Thomas (and Scalia) does not try to distinguish partial-birth abortion as something essentially different from all other types of abortion. Kennedy tries. I couldn't help but scoff at his explanation (or the Ban's wording) regarding the circumstances that make D&E either legal or illegal. Killing the fetus is illegal if it has been delivered "until, in the case of a head-first presentation, the entire fetal head is outside the body of the mother, or, in the case of breech presentation, any part of the fetal trunk past the navel is outside the body of the mother." In other words, if 99.9% of the head has been delivered, green light to Dr. Haskell. Somehow he tries to boil this immense issue of life down to a question of millimeters. The exact location of the fetus in the birth canal is the determinant of legal abortion/unlawful killing. And who knows where the "trunk" begins and ends. The ambiguity is laughable, the loopholes enormous.

Kennedy does not fail to remind us (and D&E practicing doctors) that "if a living fetus is delivered past the critical point by accident or inadvertence, the Act is inapplicable." This is not legislation from the bench, but jurisdiction from the surgeon's chair. With that small clause, the doctor (and only the doctor) may determine his culpability according to the Act. Kennedy upholds the ban, but he demonstrates its weaknesses. Abortion is killing; partial or non-partial. Kennedy shocks the reader with the gore so as to draw attention away from the absurdity of the distinction. He masks the holes of the ban (or his argument) by appealing to the visceral reaction of the reader. Notice how the ins and outs of the ban follow after the much lengthier ins and outs of the D&E procedure. "Look," he wants to say."Look how horrible this is. Psst...but don't worry, Dr. Haskell." Elusive, or disingenuous? In the end, Kennedy rests the decision of the Court and the Act on that ridiculous distinction between illegal and legal abortion, and so, rests it all on very thin ice.

p>In any event, it is helpful and good that he included the full truth of the terrifying procedure. People needed to know that. But, though I am encouraged by the Court's decision, I am not hopeful that it will serve as a catalyst for the movement of Life. I fear that Kennedy's opinion (that of the court) will incite a pro-abortion wrath that could knock this Act right off the very small pedestal it stands on and right on through that thin ice. As you say, Kennedy's decision was "firmly grounded in the deformities of Roe ," and so, not firmly grounded. I would be encouraged to see the Act find some surer footing. br> -- Colin Gleason /p> p> APOCALYPTIC DECLINE br> Re: Reid Collins's And a Little Child Shall ... : /p>

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