Blogging For Choice: more on the Ayotte (non)ruling

First, a Link Dump:

Some statements that have been released today on the latest SCOTUS decision:
From the ACLU and Planned Parenthood.
From NARAL Pro-Choice America.
From Nat'l Abortion Federation.

An informative site on the Ayotte case, created by ACLU and PPFA.
If you want to read the decision as released by the Supreme Court, go here. (it's a PDF, so Adobe Acrobat is required)


Non-Ayotte-related:
Amanda at Pandagon takes on anti-choicers for being anti-choice.

Good stuff.



(Don't forget to keep Blogging for Choice.)



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And now, about the decision:

Well, I suppose it could have been worse. I know it could have been a lot worse. And, legally, I suppose I agree with the Supreme Court decision, even if I do wish they had been slightly more conclusive about the law's obvious unconstitutionality.
While I'm extremely glad that they didn't revisit the principles on which Roe was decided in the first place, and treated it as the settled law that it is, I admit, I still have a hard time being happy about the fact that this is only a minor loss.
Yes, they said that the law must have a health provision in order to be considered constitutional, which is great.
But they upheld the principles of the parental notification law too, which I'm not ok with. If a girl isn't going to suffer any ill effects from informing her parents that she's getting an abortion, she'll tell them. If she is, she won't. Simple as that.

I guess I don't understand what the purpose of this notification law is, other than creating legislation to further curb women's rights over their own bodies. Being a minor doesn't mean you have any less of a right over your body than being of age does. I can only assume that the intention of this law is to create another obstacle for girls getting abortions, to make them less inclined to go through the whole painful ordeal, etc, because I don't see any other possible purpose for this.
Oh, and punishing "kids" for having sex, too, of course. Because that's really what the anti-choice movement is about.

And this one part of the opinion (written by O'Connor) really bothered me:

We do not revisit our abortion precedents today....[though] under our cases it would be unconstitutional to apply the act in a manner that subjects minors to significant health risks.

Am I the only one who remembers that pregnancy "subjects minors to significant health risks" too???
I don't pretend to be very knowledgeable about the health aspect of reproduction, but I have a feeling that a minor getting pregnant and actually having the child would have just as many, if not more, health risks than aborting the fetus would.

But silly me. I forgot that when girls spread their legs, they deserve the punishment of having to carry the child to term. Obviously, pregnancy as punishment makes perfect sense, especially when one claims to be "pro-life."