Apr 18, 2007 14:47
Partial Birth Abortion Ban UPHELD
Justice Ginsburg's dissenting opinion
"As Casey comprehended, at stake in cases challenging abortion restrictions is a woman's "control over her [own] destiny." 505 U. S., at 869 (plurality opinion). See also id., at 852 (majority opinion).2 "There was a time, not so long ago," when women were "regarded as the center of home and family life, with attendant special responsibilities that precluded full and independent legal status under the Constitution." Id., at 896-897 (quoting Hoyt v. Florida, 368 U. S. 57, 62 (1961)). Those views, this Court made clear in Casey, "are no longer consistent with our understanding of the family, the individual, or the Constitution." 505 U. S., at 897. Women, it is now acknowledged, have the talent, capacity, and right "to participate equally in the economic and social life of the Nation." Id., at 856. Their ability to realize their full potential, the Court recognized, is intimately connected to "their ability to control their reproductive lives." Ibid. Thus, legal challenges to undue restrictions on abortion procedures do not seek to vindicate some generalized notion of privacy; rather, they center on a woman's autonomy to determine her life's course, and thus to enjoy equal citizenship stature. See, e.g., Siegel, Reasoning from the Body: A Historical Perspective on Abortion Regulation and Questions of Equal Protection, 44 Stan. L. Rev. 261 (1992); Law, Rethinking Sex and the Constitution, 132 U. Pa. L. Rev. 955, 1002-1028 (1984)."