Supreme Court, What Took you so long?

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court said Tuesday it will consider the constitutionality of banning a type of late-term abortion, teeing up a contentious issue for a newly-constituted court already in a state of flux over privacy rights.

The Bush administration has pressed the high court to reinstate the federal law, passed in 2003 but never put in effect because it was struck down by judges in California, Nebraska and New York.

The outcome will likely rest with the two men that President Bush has recently installed on the court. Justices had been split 5-4 in 2000 in striking down a state law, barring what critics call partial birth abortion because it lacked an exception to protect the health of the mother.

But Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who was the tie-breaking vote, retired late last month and was replaced by Samuel Alito. Abortion had been a major focus in the fight over Alito’s nomination because justices serve for life and he will surely help shape the court on abortion and other issues for the next generation.

Alito, in his rulings on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, has been more willing than O’Connor, the first woman justice, to allow restrictions on abortions, which were legalized in the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973. (source)

Gee, and I thought it would take them a bit longer to start dismantling Roe v. Wade. They should at least let more time go by to make it look like it was just another bit of legislation they were looking at. It looks as if they just couldn’t wait to get their hands on it.

It all reminds me of the Star Trek movie I saw a few years ago where the Borg take over the Enterprise. In their assimilation of the Enterprise (read: Roberts and Alito, and the Bush Administration placing “activist judges” on the court to do their bidding), the Borg stopped at “deck 16”. The Klingon Worfe states, “The Borg would not have stopped at deck 16 unless it gave them a tactical advantage.” Captain Jean Luke Picard says under his breath, “The Borg won’t stop at deck 16.”

And so it goes. The Supreme Court will not stop at Roe v. Wade. They will take bits and pieces of it away until all that is left is an empty shell, filled with words that mean nothing, and have no legal authority to do anything.

And so it will be with other pieces of legislation that will come before this court. And if anything like gay marriage equality comes before this court, it will be dead on arrival, assuming they will even hear the case. They will argue it away in some fashion. This is what we have all allowed to happen. These are the people who we put into Congress to give that “up or down vote” of the people who now sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. Democracy is working!

As the Angel Gabriel said to John Constantine in the movie Constantine, “Your fucked!”

...wondering if I watch just a bit too many movies.