Supreme Court upholds partial birth abortion ban

Broadly, yesterday’s 5-4 ruling means that states may ban certain procedures that do not contain provisions for the health of the mother and may do so on moral grounds. This decision has kicked the door open for states to put all manner of restrictions on abortion.

In her dissent, Ruth Bader Ginsburg gets it exactly right (as usual).

In her stinging dissent, Ginsburg said the court's "hostility to the right Roe and Casey secured is not concealed."

She wrote that the answer to Kennedy's concern that women would regret uninformed decisions to undergo the procedure is to require physicians to give them more information.

"Instead, the court deprives women of the right to make an autonomous choice. . . . This way of thinking reflects ancient notions about women's place in the family and under the Constitution -- ideas that have long since been discredited," Ginsburg wrote.

This is a colossal step backwards in the field of reproductive rights and an equally colossal step forward to the wingnut dream of America as Jesusland.

UPDATE: I forgot to add that the ruling also supports the notion that Congress can determine which procedures are "medically necessary". Obviously, that is not something far too important to leave to doctors or otherwise uninformed practitioners of medicine.