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CommentMax
'Baby's Little Fingers Were Clasping' - Kill Him
Tony Snow
June 29, 2000
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Supreme Court is determined to make abortion zealots
of us all. Its latest foray into the issue, in the case of Stenberg vs.
Carhart, treats abortion as a "right" of such majesty and force that no
state can limit its use - no matter how barbaric the methods - once a
doctor has cooed into a woman's ear, "This is what's best for you, dear."
Opinions drafted by Justices Stephen Breyer, John Paul Stevens,
Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Sandra Day O'Connor exhibit traits familiar to
students of the topic. They cited selected precedents but took care not
to examine the Constitution itself. They sought refuge in euphemism. They
embraced dubious medical opinion. And they showered contempt on the legislative
process by telling 30 states to go fly a kite.
Justice Antonin Scalia noted piquantly that the opinion
deserves a place in history beside the Korematsu decision, in which the
court approved internment camps for Japanese-Americans, and the Dred Scott
decision, which gave the court's imprimatur to Jim Crow.
Here's the core of the controversy: Nebraska outlawed partial-birth
abortion, in which a doctor dilates a pregnant woman's cervix, initiates
delivery of the baby, reaches into the uterus so the child will enter
the birth canal feet-first, coaxes the feet and torso into the world -
then plunges scissors into the base of the child's skull, opens the cranial
cavity, inserts a tube, sucks out the brains, collapses the skull and
yanks out the limp corpse.
A shaken nurse told Congress about her experience with the
procedure: "The baby's little fingers were clasping and unclasping, and
his little feet were kicking. Then the doctor stuck the scissors in the
back of his head, and the baby's arms jerked out, like a startle reaction,
like a flinch, like a baby does when he thinks he is going to fall.
"The doctor opened the scissors, stuck a high-powered suction
tube into the opening and sucked the baby's brains out. Now the baby went
completely limp."
The pioneer of the technique, Dr. Marvin Haskell, notes
that a doctor sometimes over-dilates the patient and has to hold the baby's
head inside the vagina: "(T)he fetus could just fall out. But that's not
really the point. The point here is you're attempting to do an abortion
... not to see how do I manipulate the situation so that I get a live
birth instead."
Even though the American Medical Association and the American
College of Obstetrics and Gynecology have decreed that this operation
never is the sole or preferred method of abortion - research indicates
that it's more dangerous than "traditional" abortions, which themselves
are more dangerous than childbirth - Nebraska tried to appease potential
critics. It agreed to permit partial-birth abortions that were "necessary
to save the life of the mother whose life is endangered by a physical
disorder, physical illness or physical injury, including a life-endangering
physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself."
The high court still tossed the statute away. It averted
its eyes from the surgical technique, which it referred to merely as "D."
And it claimed Nebraska's "health" clause didn't go far enough: The state
needed to legalize butchery for women plagued with other conditions, such
as depression. As Scalia noted, this logic gives "live-birth abortion
free rein."
The prim, dense prose of the majority opinions obscures
the sleight-of-hand required to produce the result. The court not only
ignored its own precedents, it also abandoned the practice of reading
state statutes as sympathetically as possible. It ignored the testimony
of the two top medical associations. It established standards that make
it impossible to restrict any kind of abortion performed by a licensed
physician, thus repealing previous opinions that all but welcomed state
regulation.
In short, five people took it upon themselves to make law
for the other 280 million in the country. They acted not as a court, but
as a Star Chamber. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor tried to calm nerves by
claiming that Nebraska could fix its statute and win her approval. But
her tortured opinion indicates otherwise.
O'Connor's vote made it possible to deliver two-thirds of
any baby - healthy or not - and kill the child. Her vote ensured continuing
discord over the issue. Her vote demonstrated why it's better to hand
such issues to legislatures than to five verbose jurisprudes who can't
bear to describe what they have declared lawful and can't provide a single
coherent reason why they replaced the legacy of Hippocrates with that
of Dr. Mengele.
COPYRIGHT 2000 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC
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