The Natives at the NYT are complaining...

... that some of their potential blood sacrifices have been taken away by the Supreme Court. The jackals editorial board states:

Among the major flaws in yesterday's Supreme Court decision giving the federal government power to limit a woman's right to make decisions about her health was its fundamental dishonesty.

Under the modest-sounding guise of following existing precedent, the majority opinion — written by Justice Anthony Kennedy and joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito — gutted a host of thoughtful lower federal court rulings, not to mention past Supreme Court rulings.

It severely eroded the constitutional respect and protection accorded to women and the personal decisions they make about pregnancy and childbirth. The justices went so far as to eviscerate the crucial requirement, which dates to the 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade, that all abortion regulations must have an exception to protect a woman's health.

Other jackals are joining in the howling:

ADL Disappointed With Supreme Court Ruling On Partial Birth Abortion Act

New York, NY, April 19, 2007 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) issued the following statement expressing its disappointment at the Supreme Court's ruling upholding the federal Partial Birth Abortion Act:

We are deeply troubled by the ramifications of the Supreme Court's ruling on abortion. By upholding, for the first time, an abortion statute which contains no exception for the health of the woman, the Supreme Court has undermined a woman's right to choose and to act in accordance with her conscience and the dictates of her faith.

We continue to believe that Americans should have the freedom to make difficult decisions of conscience and health without government interference.

ADL joined an amicus brief in the case filed by the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Rights.

For the health of the woman? In the case of partial-birth infanticide, since when is that an issue? Does the NYT editorial board think it intellectually honest to suggest that delivering a baby alive, is any more detrimental or traumatic to a woman's health than artificially inducing womb contractions, turning the baby around in the womb so that it is delivered breech, and inserting a pair of scissors in its skull (and in the birth canal, in the process) just before the baby's head exits?

Just who is being "fundamentally dishonest" here?

It just so happened that a NARAL spokessavage was on Andy Barnett's Hot Talk this morning, where the following ensued:

When we discussed this procedure with spokesperson Melissa Reid with NARAL Pro-Choice Minnesota she said that any time you describe a medical procedure such as this in detail it sounds much more gruesome than it is. She compared it with a procedure like open heart surgery which sounds much more disgusting than it is. WHAT? Excuse me? That has to qualify as one of the most outrageous things ever uttered on Hot Talk. I don't even need to say anything else. This is a perfect example of how warped someone's mind is on the other side of this issue.

We also talked about how this ban does provide exceptions when the woman giving birth's life is in danger which apparently as not good enough for Ms. Reid who wanted the language in the bill to provide exceptions for "any health concerns" for the woman. That's pretty vague wording and opens up the door for any kind of "emotional scarring" or "psychological damage." Why even have the ban at all? When it comes down to deciding between saving a life or health concerns, I don't know about you, but I'm siding with saving a human life!

It's quite simple, really. Whether it pertains to the abortion issue, the Iraq War, or any issue under the sun, the leadership of the democrat party (and all of its minions thereof) have never been about doing the right thing. Rather, in their inbred, intractable narcissism, the liberal left has always been about self-centered expediency, as well as tenaciously holding onto what they perceive as power, for power's sake. Whether in the arena of government, politics, or in what should be the sacredness and safety of a mother's womb, one can count on leftists to invariably choose self-absorbed expediency over what is good and right. And their wholesale endorsement of a barbaric procedure that by definition can never be "medically necessary" is testament that they will go to any length to hold onto power and wield it, regardless of consequence.

The NYT's editorial had at least this much correct:

For anti-abortion activists, this case has never been about just one controversial procedure. They have correctly seen it as a wedge that could ultimately be used to undermine and perhaps eliminate abortion rights eventually.

To eliminate what could only be thoughtfully weighed as barbaric procedures, at any stage of pregnancy, should be considered a victory for any thinking person.

On the positive side, along with the Supreme Court's views changing, Americans' views on abortion, as a whole, appear to be changing as well:

Downward Trend Continues

After reaching a high of over 1.6 million in 1990, the number of abortions annually performed in the U.S. has dropped back to levels not seen since the late 1970s.

Two independent sources confirm this decline: the government's Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI), Planned Parenthood's special research affiliate monitoring trends in the abortion industry.

The CDC ordinarily develops its annual report on the basis of data received from 52 central health agencies (50 states plus New York City and the District of Columbia). AGI gets its numbers from direct surveys of abortionists.

Hopefully indicative of a trend that increasing numbers of Americans are realizing that we're dealing with human lives, not masses of tissue.
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