Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Carhart II, one more time

When I said that today's partial birth abortion opinion was "big," I meant it. I just read one commentator at Scotusblog talking about what, if anything, is left of Roe v. Wade. While I certainly don't go as far as that commentator, we will be talking about this decision for a long time. The landscape of abortion jurisprudence has changed.

But don't go too far. Today's opinion only addressed one abortion procedure--Roe addressed every abortion procedure before viability.

I think the most lasting effect of this decision will be that states and pro-life litigators will become more active in testing the foundation of Roe. There will be a lot of abortion cases for the next few years. What, if anything, comes of those cases is still up in the air.

1 comment:

Mary said...

Can you start a column on the right called "dictionary of words for those less intelligent than me"

If you could kindly include the definition of words such as jurisprudence,etc. would be greatly appreciated.

Or I guess I could just stop being lazy and look them up for myself.