Back when the Supreme Court decided in favor of common sense in the Gonzales v. Carhart decision, liberals behaved hysterically, as usual. Why, if you don't allow women to have their babies' brains sucked out in the last trimester, you were punishing them (no, really!), is how the logic went.
Evidently, that isn't exactly the case.
When the Supreme Court upheld the federal ban on "partial-birth" abortions in April, critics sounded the alarm that women would be harmed, physicians would be jailed, and state legislators would be energized to pass similar laws.
Six months later, it appears that those fears have not come true, with no prosecutions on the federal or state level, little legislative action, and quiet adjustments in abortion procedures that have so far kept doctors on the safe side of the law. (Emphasis mine)
And here's the kicker: the Supreme Court's April decision in Gonzales v. Carhart, as dramatic as it was, may not even be able to revive some of the state partial-birth abortion laws that had been struck down based on earlier Supreme Court precedent, before the high court ruled in Gonzales.
The legal landscape changes slowly, it seems, even -- or especially -- on a hot-button issue like abortion.
OMG! You mean liberals deliberately misstated the effects of a Supreme Court ruling that didn't uphold killing babies?! Say it ain't so!
In law school, I reminded people that even if Roe v. Wade were overturned (a very unlikely possibility), it was still possible for states to keep abortion legal if the people chose for that to happen. Amazingly, if the people let their legislators know an issue is important enough to them, said legislators tend to produce legislation the people want. But as we know, liberals don't like the legislature; it's too hard to actually argue their ideas and persuade people (see Jeromy Brown's arguments in favor of gay marriage, for example). Better to misuse the Constitution and discover "rights" there.
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