Citizen United vs. F. E. C.

Imagine someone told you that the government banned a movie during a presidential campaign because this movie talked about that candidate in a bad light. Imagine that the government decided it had the power to prevent a book from being published if it was a 500 page work of fiction and the last sentence said, "Vote for Joe Blow for President". Would you think that was acceptable? Or would you argue that both the movie and the book should be protected under the First Amendment?

Despite what you may have read or heard in the media, this was the heart of the case Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission. Citizens United is a conservative charity that had made a film called "Hillary: the Movie". Here is how the website for the movie describes it:

Hillary The Movie is complete! The movie you’ve been waiting for is here and exploding onto the scene! With nearly 40 in-depth interviews with experts, opinion makers, and many of the people who personally locked horns with the Clintons, this is the film you need!

The cast to end all casts includes: Dick Morris, Ann Coulter, Newt Gingrich, Jeff Gerth, Buzz Patterson, Michael Barone, Billy Dale, Cyrus Nowrasteh, Tony Blankley, Dick Armey, Bay Buchanan, Joe Connor, Mark Levin, Frank Gaffney, Peter Paul, Gary Aldrich, Dan Burton, John Mica, Michael Medved, Kathleen Willey, Kate O’Beirne, Larry Kudlow and more!

If you want to hear about the Clinton scandals of the past and present, you have it here!

Hillary The Movie is the first and last word in what the Clintons want America to forget!

Obviously, this movie was not going to be flattering to Mrs. Clinton. Citizens United wanted to air commercials promoting the movie before the Democratic Primaries. However, under McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform, because the group was promoting this film 30 days prior to a primary it was illegal. In other words, the government had the power to regulate what commercials were being aired prior to an election.

Citizens United fought this in court. As time and court hearings came and went, they picked up an unusual group of supporters. You would probably not be surprised to find that Citizens Untied is a conservative non-profit group, or that both the Heritage Foundation and the CATO Institute were supporting Citizens United in their fight. After all, conservatives stick together right? What may surprise you is that groups such as the ACLU, AFL-CIO, and the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press were also supporting Citizens United. The President's temper-tantrum during the State of the Union last week didn't make it sound like there was bipartisan support for this case, but there was.

Bradley Smith points out that, "The Court held that 2 U.S.C. Section 441a, which prohibits all corporate political spending, is unconstitutional." The court did not address political spending by foreign countries, or by businesses that are headquartered overseas. There are other sections of the law that covers that and those sections have not been affected by this ruling. What the court found particularly offensive is the broad power the FEC had taken on to ban books, tv spots, or movies that discuss political candidates prior to elections. Shouldn't every voter be concerned with this?

Our nation has a rich heritage of political discourse. Sometimes this is done on TV, sometimes in pamphlets, sometimes in newspapers. Sometimes they're funded by private individuals, sometimes non-profit groups, and sometimes companies. But all of this is protected free speech. This is the very speech our founders tried to protect. Robert Robb points out today that:

No one would argue, for example, that because a corporation is not an individual, the Fifth Amendment's protection against the taking of property without just compensation doesn't apply to it, or the Fourth Amendment's protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. How can corporations be entitled to some of the protections in the Bill of Rights but not others?

I've read a number of articles that have said in reality this decision is likely to have a very limited impact on political adds. Let's pretend it doesn't. Let's pretend American companies and unions suddenly throw lots of money into political adds in the next campaign. I say, "So what? " Anything that increases our political discourse should be a good thing. And protecting the Bill of Rights should be supported by all of us.

Profile of a Supreme Court Justice

Back in 2007 I read, My Grandfather's Son, by Justice Clarence Thomas. It was the first time I had any exposure to the life of Clarence Thomas, and I found his autobiography to be really informative. I have been thinking of Justice Thomas over the last few weeks with the fawning media attention of now Justice Sotomayor. To read the papers, or to watch TV, one would think that all of our previous Justices were the children of wealth and privilege, never once having to overcome any obstacles. Justice Thomas life story quickly shows that simply isn't true.

Clarence Thomas was born in 1948 in a small community just outside of Savannah, Georgia. His father abandoned his family very early on. Clarence Thomas states in his autobiography that he wouldn't meet his biological dad until he was nine years old, and would only see him twice in his youth. His mother did the best she could to raise him, but by the time he was seven, she realized she couldn't do it on her own. There were two boys and one girl counting Mr. Thomas. Mr. Thomas's sister would move in with other family while Clarence and his brother would move in with their grandparents. When they moved in, each boy had a grocery sack that contained all of their possessions. Both of the boys would come to view their grandparents as their parents, hence the title My Grandfather's Son. Clarence would even call his grandfather "Daddy".

His Daddy was hard on him and his brother. The boys weren't allowed to participate in after school activities. "Daddy" felt the boys needed to learn, and was worried that the two boys would get in trouble in after school activities. When school was out during the summer, the kids weren't allowed to lay around and play. The family moved to a farm every summer and worked from sun up to sun down. Clarence Thomas' grandfather / Daddy tried to instill in the boys a strong work ethic that would serve the future Justice for the rest of his life.

As Clarence got older, he began to pursue a future in the Church. He attended school at two seminaries and the College of Holy Cross. Later he attended Yale Law School. All of his educational opportunities were helped because of the life lessons he learned from his Daddy. During his college years, he rebelled against his Daddy, and his Daddy's beliefs. However, when his life finally hit its lowest point, he decided to dedicate the rest of his life to the only parents he really knew: his grandparents.

Before reading, My Grandfathers Son, I was unaware just how much race and racism factored into Clarence Thomas' life. Prospective employers assumed that he only got into Yale, and only graduated, because of race quotas. Because of that, no one wanted to hire him. Justice Thomas recounts taking a 15 cent price tag off a box of cigars and putting it on his diploma to remind him exactly how much the diploma was worth to him. Justice Thomas would remember this lesson later in life when he worked as Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights in the Department of Education and as Chairman of the Equal Opportunity Commission. In spite of the racism he grew up with and saw in college, many of his faults he blames only one person for: himself. The tough parts of his relationship with his Daddy, his drinking, radical times in college and even his failed marriage, he blames only on Clarence Thomas. This is probably another lesson his Daddy gave him: take responsibility for your own actions.

One event in his life that Clarence Thomas shouldn't take the blame for is his confirmation hearings. Democrats may accuse Republicans of racism during the Sotomayor hearings, but Clearance Thomas's opponents took personal attacks to an all new level. The vast majority of people who know Justice Thomas look back at the 1991 hearings and admit that Anita Hill was less than honest in her testimony. Justice Sotomayor may have been asked to defend her public statements. Justice Thomas and his family were put through the ringer.

Justice Sotomayor has a very interesting life story. However, the way the media has portrayed it has inadvertently hinted that the other Justices don't have interesting life stories. Hopefully, this helps put Ms Sotomayor in perspective.

Sotomayor on Abortion: A Big Blank

This week the Senate has asked Judge Sotomayor a number of questions regarding law, her thoughts on legal precedent, and her previous "wise latina" comments. Most of this week has been quiet. With Democrats holding 60 votes in the Senate, it would be almost impossible for Republicans to block her from the Supreme Court. Could liberal special interest groups block her? What if Judge Sonia Sotomayor was actually against abortion?

This discussion flows from a conversation my Dad and I had about the Judge. He asked me if I would like something interesting to write about Judge Sotomayor. I am always interested in finding unusual points of view on today's topics. My Dad's is unusual, but also compelling, so I thought I would share it.

Do a Google search for "Judge Sotomayor and abortion" and there are a number of articles about questions she has been asked and her lack of a clear answer. Some pro-choice groups are actually upset she hasn't come out clearly in favor of abortion. You can see in real time what the social media universe is saying about the Sotomayor confirmation hearings at Viral Heat. None of the articles I have read give a clear picture about her personal opinions on abortion. My Dad's line of thought goes like this:

1. Judge Sotomayor is a Hispanic Catholic. Both of these groups tend to be more anti-abortion in poll after poll.

2. She attended Cardinal Spellman High School. Here she would have been exposed to the official Catholic view in her late teens. Cardinal Spellman High School is a prestigious Catholic school.

3. Judge Sotomayor has not spoken out about abortion during her career. This is unusual considering the number of social issues she has spoken out about over the decades of her career. She has spoken out about a number of other issues (such as race) that are coming up in her confirmation hearings. As of yet, I haven't heard anyone say that she discussed the moral implications of abortion during her career.

4. Similarly, there are no papers or rulings. She hasn't written any articles on abortion nor has she ruled very significantly on abortion. These last two together show that she has actively dodged giving her opinion in public on abortion.

5. She has been a leader in a number of liberal groups, but not an abortion rights group. Digging through her memberships, I have found no pro-choice group she has held membership too.

6. Center for Reproductive Law and Policy v. Bush. In this case, Judge Sotomayor upheld the "Mexico City Policy." This policy said that the federal government would not contribute money to groups outside of the United States that fund abortions. Judge Sotomayor said the government was within its right to make this decision.

There are a number of other clues, but these seem to be the biggest ones to me. I make no claim to know the inner workings of Judge Sotomayor's brain. However, a number of previous nominees have turned out to have different leanings than the President that nominated them. I haven't seen any evidence to contradict my Dad's position, and the more I dig the more I think he may be right. My Dad stated he would give "60 -40 odds that she is pro-life." I think the chances she is pro-life are higher than that. What would the fallout be for the Obama administration if Judge Sotomayor turns out to be anti-abortion Supreme Court Justice?

This post sponsored by Viral Heat

The 5 Stories You Missed While Watching Jackson

On June 25^th, Michael Jackson died. We may never know the exact causes. Michael Jackson was at one point in his career a very impressive entertainer. He also had a number of very odd things going on in his private life. Over the last two weeks, the media has covered Michael Jackson's life, death, and funeral as he had been the head of a very powerful country. There were a few important news stories that I thought should be covered. Here they are, in no particular order:

1. Minnesota makes 60. Al Franken finally won his challenge in court and is now a U.S. Senator. As I covered in my last post, the Democrats now have control of the Presidency, a filibuster proof Senate, and the House. They now have the ability to pass any legislation without a single Republican vote. It will be interesting to see what legislation they will try to pass.

2. Thomas v. Gibbs. A few reporters got upset with the White House for only allowing prescreened questions and prescreened individuals at the last town hall meeting. Press member Helen Thomas complained that this isn't what "openness and transparency" is all about. The Press appears to be a little testy that President Obama's town hall meetings are all staged.

3. Stimulus Part Two. By any standard of measure the stimulus plan didn't work. As President Obama begins to argue for a new stimulus bill, we should keep in mind his words from the first one. We were warned that if we didn't pass the stimulus bill, and didn't pass it immediately, unemployment could go as high as 9%. With unemployment now at 9.5% and climbing, President Obama wants a new stimulus bill, maybe even one focused solely on bridges and roads. But I thought that was what we heard with the first one…

4. Judge Sonia Sotomayor. Confirmation hearings for Judge Sotomayor are starting this week. While the world mourned MJ, the Supreme Court overturned Sotomayor's decision against the Connecticut firefighters. The U. S. Supreme Court found that discriminating on the base of race (even if the victims are white) is illegal. Judge Sotomayor may have to answer questions about this and her comments that a "…Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male…" this week. I have seen articles saying Sotomayor's supporters are going to try to attack the character of the firefighters. This might be a good story to keep an eye on over the next few weeks.

5. As Global Warming falls apart, the House acts. The evidence is really starting to look grim for global warming supporters. The tale-tale fingerprint of unusual upper atmosphere warming that the U.N. said would prove global warming hasn't materialized. The global temperature has been declining for the last 9 to 10 years. Things are getting bad enough that global warming supporters are now trying to get everyone to call it "catastrophic climate change". That way, it can explain highs AND lows. Into all this, the House of Representatives voted to enact cap and trade legislation just as New Zealand ditched their version of cap and trade. Cap and Trade will do two things. First, it will raise your energy prices. Everyone agrees on this, it's only the dollar figure that people dispute. Democrats claim your energy bill will only go up be a few measly hundred dollars each year. The Heritage Foundation and others have crunched the numbers and they believe it could be closer to $3,000 a year. Either way, you have a new energy tax coming your way. The second thing this did was violate a campaign promise of President Obama. This tax will be on everyone, not just those earning $250,000 a year or more.

Judge Sonia Sotomayor

If you have been following the major news outlets this week (Fox News included), you know a few things about the judge President Obama has nominated for the Supreme Court:

1. She is a She.
2. She is Hispanic.
3. Republicans had better watch out if they question anything about her.

Republicans have tripped over themselves saying they will not criticize her based on her sex or ethnic background. I believe there are a few good reasons to deny Judge Sotomayor the highest court in the land. Lady Justice is supposed to be blind. If my criticisms would be valid against a white Republican, then they are valid against Sonia Sotomayor.

Her previous decisions do raise some real question marks, specifically her decision in Ricci v. DeStefano. The city of New Haven, Connecticut uses an exam to qualify firefighters for promotions. This test is examined ahead of time to make sure it is "race neutral" and it is administered due to an agreement between the city and the union. Traditionally, firefighters who pass the examine are promoted. On one specific occasion, 16 white firefighters and one Hispanic firefighter passed the exam. They were not promoted because no black firefighters passed the test. The city decided they wouldn't promote anyone if there were no successful black applicants. The firefighters sued believing they had been the victims of racism. The lower court dismissed the case, and Judge Sotomayor heard it as an appeals judge and agreed with the lower court. In the coming weeks you will hear more about this case for three reasons: the appeal of the case is going to be decided by the Supreme Court in June; the decision, coupled with other comments by Sotomayor, does not pain a flattering picture of the Judge; and another Hispanic Judge, Jose Cabranes, wrote an opinion questioning Sotomayor's decision.

She has made some very questionable remarks, in public and on the record, regarding her judicial philosophy. This is important because her comments are fair game in confirmation hearings. She shouldn't be asked how she will decide on gay marriage, abortion, or school prayer, but she can be asked what she meant when she said, "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life." President Obama and Secretary Gibbs have both tried to clarify these remarks.

Perhaps even more troubling are her remarks in 2005 stating that policy is made at the appeals court. Policy and law are not made in court. State and Federal Legislators make law, not judges. Judges interpret that law. They decide what is and what isn't out of bounds. They don't decide where that foul line is.

Republicans should challenge Judge Sotomayor on these points, and others that may come out over the next few weeks. Democrats and the Media would do well to look over these issues as well. Perhaps they should stop telling Republicans what is fair criticism, and look at Judge Sotomayor's record.

Habeas Corpus (Part Two)

In my last post, I began describing potential consequences of the Supreme Court’s decision in Boumedine v. Bush. This is the case where the Supreme Court ruled that enemy combatants held on foreign soil are guaranteed habeas corpus rights. These same rights are denied to military service members and illegal immigrants. Today, I wish to illustrate two more problems with this decision, or unintended consequences and I wish to offer my humble solutions to fix this decision.

I spent some time in my last post talking about the precedent of the Supreme Court. Previous courts have held that the writ of habeas corpus doesn’t apply to enemy combatants captured in a time of war. This court has disregarded precedent of previous Supreme Courts, and its own decision in 2006. If the court is willing to throw out precedent, does this open the way to a Roe v. Wade challenge? The only reason most people give to leave that decision alone is because it has become law of the land, and is now legal precedent. The Supreme Court has shown it is willing to ignore precedent and Roe v. Wade defenders should be worried.

This decision also infringes on the constitutional separation of powers. Our system is designed to give the other branches of government the ability to reign in a branch that abuses its powers. The President created a system for dealing with enemy combatants, the Supreme Court said that system was wrong and needed to be fixed with the help of Congress. The President worked with Congress and Congress passed laws on how prisoners would have their cases reviewed at Guantanamo. The two branches of government elected by the people worked together to find a solution. This doesn’t sound like the rouge actions of one branch. The Supreme Court has decided that it can rule the other branches of government wrong. Five un-elected justices decided they could determine war time policy better than the elected representatives of the people.

How do we fix this? Believe it or not, there are a number of ways. Here are my solutions, from band aid fix to serious fix. The more deliberate the solution, the harder it would be. My first solution is the easiest to do. Congress can now pass laws that detail how court proceedings for foreign combatants are to be carried out. For example, Congress could say that in cases involving enemy combatants, the combatant has no right to review classified information or to interview the soldiers that captured them.

Secondly, Congress could legislate what court (or courts) might have jurisdiction over trials involving enemy combatants challenging their designation. If only one or two courts had jurisdiction, only a handful of judges would need to be trained on dealing with military cases in time of war. Perhaps Congress would decide that these cases can only be tried by FISA courts.

Finally, and my personal favorite, Congress has the ability to change the number of Supreme Court justices. The U. S. Constitution does not spell out the size of the Supreme Court. We have nine justices now, we have had ten in the past, and the original court was set up with six. Congress could pass the Judicial Reconciliation Act of 2008 (named by me) and double the size of the court. 18 justices cuts the amount of power any one judge wields in half. This would be tough to do (it would literally require an act of congress) but would send a clear message to the court, and would reign in some of the more “activist” members.

Like Roe v. Wade, in the court has imposed its own views of how the law should be written, and not how it actually is written. The Supreme Courts job isn’t to create new rights. The Supreme Court is to rule on standing laws. The Supreme Court failed last week. I hope Congress and the President can clean up the courts mess.

Habeas Corpus (Part One)

Last week the Supreme Court ruled that enemy combatants held at the U. S. base at Guantanamo have the right to challenge their status in Federal court. The 5 – 4 decision has been hotly debated. The decision of Boumedine v. Bush grants writ of habeas corpus to enemy combatants captured on the battlefield in a time of war. These combatants are not U. S. citizens and most have never set foot in the United States. The decision also ruled that the Military Commissions Act of 2006 was unconstitutional. This is largely being reported as a defeat for President Bush. I believe it is much more ominous than that, and you might not realize why.

Nothing exists in a vacuum, and this decision is no different. In order to understand the future problems with this decision, we need to examine its past. After 9/11, the Justice Department believed the Supreme Court would stand by precedent and not apply constitutional rights to enemy combatants held outside the United States in a time of war. Turns out, the Supreme Court isn’t really worried about precedent. Remeber this, we're going to revisit it later.

In the 2006 Hamdan v. Rumsfeld case, the Supreme Court ruled that military tribunals set up by President Bush were not in accordance with the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the Geneva Conventions. However, the court also ruled that if the President wanted to proceed with trials in Guantanamo Bay, the President should get Congress to pass laws with direction for how the cases are going to be handled. This is exactly what Congress did.

As John Yoo wrote in the Wall Street Journal, “[u]ntil Boumediene, the Supreme Court had never allowed an alien who was captured fighting against the U. S. to use our courts to challenge his detention.” He goes on to say:

In World War II, no civilian court reviewed the thousands of German prisoners housed in the U. S. Federal judges never heard cases from the Confederate prisoners of war held during the Civil War. In a trilogy of cases decided at the end of World War II, the Supreme Court agreed that the writ did not benefit enemy aliens held outside the U.S.

What does this decision mean? Being a fan of the "Law of Unintended Consequences", I thought I would speculate on some of the possible outcomes of this decision. One outcome I have heard debated in a number of sources is: What do U. S. forces do with people captured on the battlefield? Many believe the U. S. Military is now going to have to collect evidence, and mirandize enemy combatants. Imagine this, a soldier is fighting for his life, bullets are flying, and he see’s someone come around the corner with a Soviet RPG. Does he have to read this person their Miranda rights before deciding to fire or not?

Others believe our forces will simply not capture terrorist on the battlefield. They argue it will be more effective to simply kill the bad-guys where they find them. I don’t think this is very accurate. Our soldiers are warriors and have behaved honorably in combat. I believe it is much more likely that they will simply turn any captured enemy combatants over to the police and secret police of the country they are in. If we capture an Iranian officer in Iraq, we turn him over to the Iraqi Army and ask to sit in on the interrogation. If this happens, does the combatant receive better treatment in Iraq than he would have received in G’itmo?

What if we capture Osama bin Laden? Sen. Obama has said he believes that the terrorist should stand trial. For those of you old enough to remember the O.J. trials, imagine a similar fiasco with the mastermind of 9/11 at its center. Do you believe the bin Laden fortune and the money of the clerics in Saudi Arabia can afford a good attorney? Democrats and Liberals are always big on our international image. Imagine how we look if Osama is found not guilty in one of our own courts. Perhaps he could even stand trial in a court in New York.

I will leave you with that mental picture until tomorrow. Come back tomorrow for a few more problems with this decision, and my humble recommendations for how to fix it.

Book Review: My Grandfather's Son

I, like most Americans, know very little about the current Supreme Court Justices. While I try to follow their decisions, I don’t really know a lot about the people who make up the highest court in our nation. When My Grandfather's Son: A Memoir by Justice Clarence Thomas was released, I thought I might change that. After I heard an interview by Rush Limbaugh with Justice Thomas, I decided I had to read his book. If you aren’t familiar with Rush’s show, he rarely interviews people for his program. However, he aired a one and a half hour interview with Justice Thomas on his show (a record length for an interview on the Rush Limbaugh Show). After hearing the first part of the interview, I thought Justice Thomas sounded like a fascinating person, and his book reinforced that position.

My Grandfather’s Son is an autobiography of Justice Thomas that follows his life from birth in 1950’s Georgia to his confirmation on the Supreme Court during the senior George Bush’s administration. Clarence Thomas wouldn’t meet his biological dad until he was nine years old, and would only see him twice in his youth. His mother did the best she could to raise him, but by the time he was seven, she realized she couldn’t do it on her own. She sent him and his brother to live with their grandparents. They lived a few blocks down from his grandparents and Clarence Thomas describes walking down the street to move in with them. Both he and his brother carried a grocery sack that contained all of their possessions.

From that point on, Justice Thomas would always think of his Grandfather as his “Daddy”. His grandmother was called Aunt Tina (pronounced “Teenie”). These two would be the parents Justice Thomas would know the rest of his life. His Daddy was hard on him. He wouldn’t allow the two boys to join after school activities, and moved them to a family farm during the summer every year to work. He tried to instill in the boys a strong work ethic. Even though the college age Clarence Thomas would rebel against his Daddy, those lessons his Grandfather instilled in him stuck. Years later, when Clarence Thomas’s life was at its lowest point, he promised to dedicate the rest of it to his grandparents.

I was unaware how much race and racism factored into Clarence Thomas’ life. Through hard work, and his Daddy’s lessons, he was able to go to Holy Cross and then Yale Law School. However, upon graduating, the future Supreme Court Justice found out the true worth of his Yale Law degree. Employers assumed that he only got into Yale, and only graduated, because of race quotas. Because of that, no one wanted to hire him. Justice Thomas recounts taking a 15 cent price tag off a box of cigars and putting it on his diploma to remind him exactly how much the diploma was worth to him.

There has been a lot of discussion in interviews with the Justice regarding the brutal honesty he puts in his book. Even knowing that, I was surprised how much of the misfortune in his life he lays squarely at his own feet. His troubled adult relationship with “the only real father he ever knew”, a failed marriage, heavy drinking, and radical years in college he all blames on himself. Some of his failures could have probably been omitted from the book. However, Justice Thomas believes that he had to be honest so that others reading this book can see how low he sunk and perhaps give that reader hope. His discussion of the “Anita Hill scandal” is heartbreaking. I could feel his pain, and the pain his family and friends went through in the pages of this book.

My Grandfather’s Son is a page turning autobiography. The racism Justice Thomas faced (from southerners and liberals alike) is very much alive in the pages of this book. After reading this book, I found myself revolted by some figures that are still in D.C., and respecting others I hadn’t cared for before. I am old enough to just vaguely remember the conformation process Justice Thomas went through. Reading his recount of how it affected him and his family left me with tremendous respect for Justice Thomas. I recommend this book to anyone who is slightly interested in politics, or who likes a good biography. I can only hope there is a future Justice who reads this book and takes some lessons away from it.

Supreme Court Gets One Right

The Supreme Court ruled this week on a Federal law prohibiting partial birth abortions. The Supreme Court’s role in our government is to decide if a law written by the Congress, and signed into law by the President, violated the U. S. Constitution. It was not asked to decide if this was a bad or a good law, but was it a Constitutional law. In this case, the Supreme Court decided that the law was Constitutional.

The procedure at the heart of the law is either called “partial birth abortion” or a “dilation and extraction procedure” depending on your point of view in the debate on abortion. Most estimates claim this particular procedure, regardless of the name, is performed on anywhere from 2,200 to 5,000 patients a year. This is out of an approximate 1 million abortions performed a year. The procedure involves partially removing the unborn child from the woman’s uterus (hence the “partial birth” descriptor) and then killing the baby. Depending on the account, the child’s skull is either cut or crushed.

Many abortion rights advocates argue that this is a bad decision because it doesn’t allow for cases where the mother’s life is in danger. This is not accurate. The law allows for the procedure if the mother’s life is in danger, but not her “health”. The subtle difference is that abortions are currently performed with the argument that the mother’s mental well being could be at stake. This is a very nebulous issue that is hard to validate. Allowing the procedure if the mother’s actual life is in danger is much more straight forward, easier to validate, and gives very clear guidance to doctors. Many places aren’t reporting that this is still allowed under the federal law.

Regardless of if you agree with this procedure or not, the Supreme Court made the correct decision. This is a question for the voters and their representatives to decide on, and not the Supreme Court. The Court has decided the law is Constitutional, and that should be the only role for the Court in this case. If you disagree with this law, contact your local representative and work to have the law changed.