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The Michigan Socialist | News |
National
News
Federal court overturns
partial-birth abortion ban
By L. MEYERS
The Michigan Socialist
 |
| Hangin’
with the boys: Bush signs the “Partial-Birth Abortion Act of
2003” with all of its main movers and supporters. |
ON JUNE 1, a federal judge in San Francisco,
Calif., ruled that the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 was
unconstitutional on the grounds that it violated a woman’s right to
choose.
In her mammoth 117-page ruling, U.S. District
Court Judge Phyllis Hamilton stated that the Act had three central
“flaws” that mandated declaring it unconstitutional.
The Act was signed into law amid great fanfare
after both houses of Congress overwhelmingly approved it, since it
was a key part of the anti-woman agenda of the Bush regime and its
Christian-fundamentalist base.
The first “flaw” was that the Act placed an undue
burden on a woman’s right to choose any time up to the point when a
fetus can survive outside of the womb with the aid of technology
(about 24 weeks; almost six months).
The second and third “flaws” relate to the wording
of the Act.
The language of the Act was vague and could be
interpreted to ban other similar means for terminating a pregnancy;
as well, there was no provision in the Act for exceptions to the ban
in cases where the life and health of the mother are at stake.
Judge Hamilton sharply criticized the fact that
basic medical understanding, in terms of the language and
definitions provided in the legislation, was obviously lacking from
the Act — which left a lot of it up to “interpretation.”
This was no accident.
For years, the far-right Christian fundamentalists
have sought to redefine the medical procedure known as “Dialation
and Extraction” (D&X) as “partial-birth abortion,” even though the
vast majority of these procedures are done in instances where
carrying the fetus to term would cause irreparable harm to the
mother.
The “dumbed down” definitions in the Act,
according to Hamilton, could be used to ban the more common
“Dialation and Evacuation” and Induction procedures, thus making 95
percent of the second-trimester abortions illegal.
Without a doubt, this was precisely the plan of
the Act’s authors and sponsors in Congress and the White House.
Ever since the Roe v. Wade decision in
1973, anti-choice forces have sought to overturn a woman’s right to
abortion services.
However, Roe’s importance was not in its
legalizing of access to abortion services per se, but rather it was
that it gave poor and working-class women the same rights that
wealthy women of the capitalist could purchase by going to Europe.
This fact more than anything else has made Roe
a target of the anti-choice and fundamentalist forces.
The Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 was raw
meat for the religious right.
It was meant to help line up these forces — many
of whom have strong ties to the Ku Klux Klan and neo-fascist
organizations — in anticipation of the upcoming presidential
election.
It is not beyond the imagination to believe that
this Act was passed only because it would be challenged in court in
2004, thus making it a “wedge issue” in the upcoming contest between
George W. Bush and John F. Kerry.
That is, it was a calculated move on the part of
the neoconservatives in Congress and the White House to divert media
and public attention away from the deteriorating situation in Iraq
and the sinking economy, and focus on the capitalists’ “culture war”
against working people.
After hearing of Judge Hamilton’s ruling, the Bush
regime issued a statement that talked a lot about being “committed
to building a culture of life in America.”
Such words are hollow and hypocritical coming from
a government that has been killing innocent civilians from Iraq to
Haiti, and from an individual (Bush) who has a documented history of
mocking those whom he placed on death row in Texas and were pleading
for their lives.
The right of women to obtain an abortion is
central to the right of women to control their own bodies and
destinies — rights that Socialists have fought to protect and extend
since the founding of our movement.
At those times in history when Socialists opposed
the abortion procedure, it was on purely medical grounds; that is,
at those times our predecessors felt that the medical procedure was
too dangerous, and counterposed comprehensive access to birth
control and other forms of contraception as a safer alternative.
Today, with advances in medical technology, the
abortion procedure is no more dangerous than most minor surgeries
like endoscopies or laser eye surgery.
Thus, for the anti-choice forces, it is more
important than ever to confuse, confound and convolute medical
terminology in order to fit their far-right agenda.
For us Socialists, this fact makes it more
important than ever to pierce the bubble of ignorance that the
capitalists wish to impose on society from above by fighting to
expand democracy through education and action. |
