Object Lessons | Supreme Court abortion decision troubling for women’s health

Carolyn Bradley Columnist

It is a testament to the smug complacency of the Vassar left that I have spent the better portion of the last two weeks attempting to convince my friends that Gonzales v. Carhart constitutes a significant threat to women. The decision, put forward on April 18 with a 5-to-4 vote, upholds the legality of a nationwide ban on so-called “partial-birth” abortions. At a school so politically confused that Ralph Nader—with his longstanding opposition to “feticide” and “gonadal politics,” not to mention that minor point of his having handed the 2000 election to Bush—was welcomed onto campus last week with open arms, this is perhaps not a surprise.

Do I sound bitter? I am. For the first time, the Supreme Court has upheld an abortion ban that fails to
provide an exception to safeguard the health of the woman, in a flagrant breach of Roe v. Wade. The Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, passed by the Republican-controlled Congress in 2003, makes it criminal for physicians to perform abortions using “dilation and extraction,” a second- and third-term abortion procedure. The law provides a sole exception for the life of the woman, but none for her health. Importantly, the Court struck down a similar state ban on “partial-birth” abortions in 2000— but that was, of course, before President Bush appointed Justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito. Indeed, that was the year Nader spent continually arguing that the possibility of the reversal of Roe by a Republican-packed Court was simply a Democratic scare tactic. Yet, the Supreme Court’s decision accords precisely with the anti-choice agenda of chipping away at Roe one abortion ban at a time: Nader, are you paying attention?

Disturbingly, many leftists (including many pro-choice ones) have reinforced anti-choice arguments by belittling the significance of the Supreme Court ruling. After all, as these leftists point out, there are other late-term abortion methods available. Besides, these leftists too are offended by the “partial-birth” abortion procedure and would prefer not to think about it if possible, and would certainly not put themselves on the line by defending it in a culture increasingly permeated with the right-wing prevarication that pro-choicers have a disregard for human life. How nice to take a traditional moral stand every once in a while!

Yet, what these leftists fail to appreciate is that there is more at stake than simply the “partial-birth” abortion procedure. The Court’s ruling represents a frightening shift in the way in which the Court addresses the issue of reproductive rights itself. If the Supreme Court’s argument against “partial-birth” abortions is that they are “laden with the power to devalue human life,” as Justice Kennedy wrote for the majority, what is to stop the Supreme Court from ruling against other procedures as well?

The alternative methods don’t exactly give one that life-affirming warm-fuzzy feeling: “suction aspiration,” “reducing a calvarium,” “dilation and curettage”—medical terms for an array of procedures that are all pretty shocking (just look ’em up). Considering this precedent, why shouldn’t the Supreme Court go further by banning other procedures—or even the practice of abortion altogether? Certainly, “pro-life” activists are asking themselves just that, taking the Court’s decision as a cue to press state legislatures to pass laws that will not only add new constraints to abortion, but trigger a challenge to Roe itself.

To the starry-eyed Naderites and all the other complacent third-wave feminists who think reproductive rights were handed to our mothers on a silver platter, I want to say that I am very alarmed by Gonzales v. Carhart—and I am getting to work. It would be nice to hear that I am not alone.