Free Republic

How does one properly describe another who would -- for purely selfish political reasons and with deliberation -- intentionally refuse a thirsty child water or a hungry child food?  More specifically, what does one call a lawmaker who would condemn to death the child survivor of a botched abortion by permitting doctors to refuse that child, once born alive, potentially life-saving medical treatment and nutrition?     A number of things come to mind.  Mr. President isn't one of them.     Based on National Journal's vote ratings -- an objectively tallied assessment of congressional voting records -- Barack Obama has properly...

A well-connected authority in the evangelical world said in an interview this week that Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama could get up to 40 percent of the evangelical vote.

A Virginia law banning a type of late-term abortion is still unconstitutional, even though a similar federal ban was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday. The 2-1 decision by a panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirms the same court’s 2005 ruling striking down the law. The Supreme Court had ordered the appeals court to take another look at Virginia’s statute after the ruling on the federal ban. The appeals court cited a key difference between the federal and state bans on the procedure that abortion opponents call “partial-birth abortion.” The...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- April 18 marked the one-year anniversary of the Supreme Court's ruling in Gonzales v. Carhart, in which it rejected legal challenges to the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003. While opponents of the ban claimed numerous lawsuits would be brought forth to challenge the Supreme Court's ruling, thus far no challenges have been filed. One of the four justices who dissented in the Gonzales ruling to uphold the ban, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, expressed her expectation of challenges. She claimed they would "be mounted swiftly, to ward off serious, sometimes remediable harm, to women whose...

To vomit, or not to vomit: That is the question: Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to dispose of one’s supper, or to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous equivocation, and take arms against a sea of fellows and colleagues, and by writing in opposition, reveal thoughts conceived in fraudulence. Perhaps that sounds like so much gobbledygook to you, and no doubt, Shakespeare is flopping about in his coffin like a grounded catfish. Therefore, you may have some sense of my pent-up irritation, having endured as a witness to the systematic programming of my fellow citizens. Conscientious, moral people...

WASHINGTON DC, February 15, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The American Public Health Association (APHA) yesterday announced a range of policies that were approved by the Association's Governing Council during last year's annual meeting in Washington, DC.Among a long list of generally positive health policy initiatives is a call for the removal of all restrictions that limit access to abortion in the US, including the repeal of parental consent laws and partial birth abortion bans.The APHA promotes itself as the largest association of "public health professionals" in the world. It's declared aim is to "protect all Americans and their communities from preventable,...

NEW YORK, January 10, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Cleverly marketing legal abortion as a boon to women's emancipation has been the most important task of the abortion industry and lobby for thirty years. In this month's edition, the gruesome procedure of partial birth abortion has been given a style makeover by the world's most influential fashion magazine, Vogue. The magazine offers the article's description: "When Lori Campbell's second pregnancy developed complications, she was faced with a painful decision.  But she was thankful it was hers to make." What follows is a paean to legalized late-term abortion and a series of long...

COLUMBIA, SC (AP) - The South Carolina affiliate of the National Right to Life Committee has endorsed Republican presidential hopeful Fred Thompson. South Carolina Citizens for Life on Wednesday praised the former Tennessee senator's voting record on abortion issues. In a news release, the group cited Thompson's vote against so-called partial-birth abortion and his stance for adult stem cell research but not embryonic stem cell research. Thompson has touted his anti-abortion voting record during his campaign. He has already been endorsed by the committee's national group.

Make no mistake about it - when the nation's largest pro-life group endorsed Fred Thompson on Tuesday its goal was to shake up the Republican contest for the presidency. The National Right to Life's endorsement is the gold standard coveted by those Republicans seeking the White House because it bestows a legitimacy and authenticity on the candidate who receives it as the standard-bearer for those who want to end abortion on demand. The Thompson endorsement not only signals how the organization representing 3,000 pro-life groups has grown up, but it shows just how close the country is to seeing Roe...

Liberals wouldn't lift a finger to stop the torturing -- to the point of destroying -- unborn human life. But put a terrorist [or a baby seal, for that matter] in the block and watch them spring into sensitive-soul mode. Rosa Brooks epitomizes the mindset in her current LA Times column, "Torture: the new abortion." Her notion is that among Republicans, the new litmus test for presidential candidates is not opposition to abortion but support for U.S. officials who order the "torture of prisoners."

Most pro-life people are outraged when they realize that Planned Parenthood, the number one abortion provider in the United States, is a tax exempt organization receiving hundreds of millions of our tax dollars. But everyone, pro-life or not, should be outraged over the criminal allegations Planned Parenthood faces in Overland Park, Kansas. According to the 107-count indictment filed in Johnson County District Court yesterday, Planned Parenthood purposefully performed illegal late term abortions in violation of Kansas State law and unlawfully falsified documents in order to conceal that fact. They are also accused of failing to comply with the required...

by Steven ErteltLifeNews.com EditorOctober 8, 2007Des Moines, IA (LifeNews.com) -- Campaigning in Iowa over the weekend, pro-abortion presidential candidate Barack Obama attempted to moderate his views on abortion and abstinence education. However, he made it clear he has no interest in limiting or reducing abortions and his pro-abstinence stance is tempered by his backing of sexual education.Speaking in the northeast town of New Hampton late Friday, Obama responded to a question in a forum from a Denver resident in the first primary state for a family reunion.The questioner asked Obama to reconcile how society gets upset at someone like Michael...

by Steven ErteltLifeNews.com EditorOctober 2, 2007Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Rudy Giuliani has tried every trick in the book in order to persuade pro-life voters to consider him for the Republican nomination for president. Now a congressman with a long record of opposing abortion has labeled the former mayor pro-life and said he would have voted mostly pro-life if he had been a congressman as well.Rep. Pete Sessions, a Texas Republican, says that if Giuliani were a member of Congress today, he'd be considered pro-life."In a hypothetical comparison of congressional votes, Mayor Giuliani's voting record would mirror the voting record of...

Four months ago the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. As I said at the time, banning this unspeakably barbaric form of abortion was a victory—albeit a small one—for the pro-life cause. It represented another step toward the end of abortion-on-demand in this country. Certainly the nation’s pro-abortion forces saw it that way as well. The near-hysterical reaction of the Center for Reproductive Rights was typical: “The U.S. Supreme Court,” it said, “effectively overturned 30 years of precedent and announced that women’s health is no longer a paramount concern . . . the Court’s decision paves...

Doctors Avoid Prosecution by Killing One of Their Patients Contact: Phil Magnan, Director, Biblical Family Advocates, 619-962-0659, phil@bfamilyadvocates.com SAN DIEGO, August 13 /Christian Newswire/ -- Most will hail the ban on Partial Birth abortion which could potentially save thousands of pre-born children from having their brains sucked out and their skulls crushed; but sadly the weakness in the law is revealing itself in glaring brutality. In a startling article in the Boston Globe entitled, 'Shots assist in aborting fetuses' it explains how "In response to the Supreme Court decision upholding the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, many abortion providers in Boston...

Wichita, KS (LifeNews.com) -- Infamous late-term abortion practitioner George Tiller was supposed to be arraigned this week on 19 criminal misdemeanor changes of allegedly illegal late-term abortions. However, in a surprise and hushed move, Tiller plead not guilty on Friday to the charges in an effort to avoid the media and pro-life protests. Tiller appeared in the Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Office for processing and was released on his own recognizance, which is common for misdemeanor cases. His attorney, Lee Thompson, would not tell the Associated Press why Tiller secretly went in five days early to enter his plea. “The law...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Barack Obama is a rising star within the Democratic Party and has a legitimate shot at becoming its nominee in the 2008 presidential race. Obama has a long record of supporting unlimited abortion but, in a recent interview with CBN News, he claims he has a strong Christian belief system. For most Christians, abortion is diametrically opposed to Biblical values. Leading Christian churches such as the Catholic Church, Southern Baptist Church, and many others strongly condemn abortion because it involves the destruction of human life made in God's image. But Obama, who has a 0 percent...

Baton Rouge, LA (LifeNews.com) -- Abortion advocacy groups typically aren't willing to budge when it comes to opposing even the most modest limitations on abortion. Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu, a Democrat, found that out the hard way when she voted for a ban on partial-birth abortions. When Landrieu first ran for the U.S. Senate in 1996 in a heavily contested race, she enjoyed the support of all the leading pro-abortion groups. During that initial campaign, the pro-abortion EMILY's List, the largest political action committee in the nation and one that only supports pro-abortion women for Congressional races, was her biggest...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- One of the top pro-abortion Democrats in the Senate says he wants Congress to slow down on confirming the next Supreme Court nominee if President Bush has a chance to pick one more before the end of his term. Sen. Charles Schumer, of New York, commented on the same day a poll showed a majority of Americans backed the high court's decision in the partial-birth abortion case. Schumer said on Friday at the American Constitution Society convention that the Senate should only confirm Bush's next high court nominee "in extraordinary circumstances" and should "reverse the presumption...

Detroit, MI (LifeNews.com) -- After the Supreme Court upheld the national ban on partial-birth abortions, some abortion businesses are so desperate to continue doing legal second-trimester abortions that they are willing to put women's health at risk by misusing a drug for heart conditions to do the abortions. The partial-birth abortion ban made it clear that abortion practitioners can't mostly deliver an unborn child before doing the abortion and killing her. To get around the ban, they are using the drug digoxin to kill the baby inside the mother's womb and then cause the mother to miscarry the dead baby's...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds that a majority of Americans backed the Supreme Court's decision earlier this year to uphold a national ban on partial-birth abortions. The poll is consistent with other surveys showing Americans strongly opposing the gruesome abortion procedure. While abortion advocates frequently paint the high court's decision as out of step with the American public, the poll shows it is pro-abortion groups who don't represent most people. The poll found that 55 percent of Americans agreed with the decision upholding the national partial-birth abortion ban.The survey found that a majority of...

Undoubtedly, the most significant aspect of the Supreme Court's April decision in Gonzales v. Carhart was that it narrowly upheld Congress' "partial-birth abortion" ban. That said, Justice Anthony Kennedy's opinion may affect America more for what it said about abortion than what it decreed about the law of abortion. The case appears to have opened up a new phase in abortion jurisprudence -- one in which abortion is largely permitted though disdained. This is not surprising, because Carhart represents the first recent occasion on which Kennedy set our national abortion policy. What may be surprising is how greatly both sides...

Baton Rouge, LA (LifeNews.com) -- Louisiana is the first state to ban partial-birth abortions following a ruling from the Supreme Court saying a national ban on the gruesome abortion procedure is constitutional. The high court ruled such bans don't need a health exception because the three-day-long abortion procedure doesn't protect women's health. Gov. Kathleen Blanco, a Democrat, signed into law two companion bills sponsored by Rep. Gary Beard, a Republican, and Sen. Ben Nevers, a Democrat. Under the measures, anyone who does a partial-birth abortion could be fined between $1,000 and $10,000 and go to prison for anywhere from one...

What’s so bad about Planned Parenthood? It’s a question Americans must wonder about as they see pro-lifers protesting or praying outside clinics. And it deserves an answer because it gets to the heart of some key and contentious questions we face as a society, one that is ever creeping toward a brave new world (in many respects already living in it) as biotechnological choices propagate. Consider that Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton has been endorsed by Planned Parenthood in her Senate runs. Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, a Republican, has given money to them in the past....

LifeNews.com Note: Laura Echevarria is the former Director of Media Relations and a spokesperson for the National Right to Life Committee and has been a radio announcer, freelance writer active in local politics. She is a new opinion columnist for LifeNews.com.In 1994, during a job interview with the National Right to Life Committee, the communications director described for me an abortion procedure that was so heinous and repugnant I was stunned. A couple of months later, as a new staff member, my education about the procedure called partial-birth abortion began. When I think back about all of the hard work...

Topeka, KS (LifeNews.com) -- Late-term abortion practitioner George Tiller may have violated a Kansas law saying that such abortions can only be done for legitimate health reasons and if two physicians sign off on them. Now that pro-abortion Attorney General Paul Morrison has charged him with 19 violations of the law, he's suing to overturn it.As the first response to the new charges, attorneys for Tiller have filed a lawsuit claiming the Kansas law is unconstitutional. Tiller's attorneys argue that the provision of the law that requires two or more doctors to sign off on late-term abortions is invalid.In their...

They're both conservative Republicans running longshot campaigns for President and they're both in Congress, but Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado and Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas have decidedly different platforms. Tancredo is the anti-immigration candidate and Brownback is the anti-abortion candidate. And they're arguing about it. Each hopes that primary voters in Iowa care more about his issue than the other's. Attacked by Tancredo in Iowa on immigration this weekend, Brownback pointed the finger today at Tancredo on abortion. Tancredo is the national voice against amnesty, leading the conservative charge against the bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform bill defeated last week...

TOPEKA, Kansas, June 29, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – George Tiller, the most infamous late-term abortionist in Kansas and the United States, will finally face 19 misdemeanor charges for illegally using a physician financed by him to authorize his late-term abortions. Attorney General Paul Morrison made the announcement yesterday after sending mixed signals earlier in the week about what his office intended to do with Tiller “the baby killer”, who was under investigation by former AG Phill Kline for performing illegal late-term abortions. Morrison first announced Wednesday that he would drop 15 of the 30 misdemeanor charges that Kline filed against Tiller...

Topeka, KS (LifeNews.com) -- Kansas' late-term abortion practitioner George Tiller could face 19 years in prison for doing illegal abortions. After dropping all of the charges against Planned Parenthood and some of the ones against Tiller, Kansas Attorney General Paul Morrison says the case isn't over. He confirmed he will pursue 19 misdemeanor charges against the late-term abortion practitioner. In a statement on Thursday, Morrison said he described the allegations as a “technical violation” of a 1998 law saying the abortions can only be done for legitimate health reasons. Morrison said he and his staff "found a pattern of referrals...

Baton Rouge, LA (LifeNews.com) -- The Louisiana state House put the final touches on a bill that would ban partial-birth abortions and sent it to Governor Kathleen Blanco after approving it unanimously. If Blanco signs the bill, it would prohibit more than 300 such abortions that are done in the state on an annual basis. Lawmakers there hope to put a new ban on the books after an April Supreme Court decision saying such bans are constitutional and that a federal ban on the gruesome abortion procedure is valid. The ban prohibits all such abortions unless necessary to save the...

Topeka, KS (LifeNews.com) -- Kansas Attorney General Paul Morrison, who has been under fire from pro-life groups for dragging his feet on a probe into potentially illegal abortions at Planned Parenthood dropped all of the charges. He dropped some of the charges against Wichita late-term abortion practitioner George Tiller but kept others. The pro-life group Kansans for Life is disappointed and worries that political games may have been played. "Planned Parenthood in Overland Park was the site of political phone banking and letter stuffing (that was surely designed to help Paul Morrison defeat Phill Kline) on multiple dates prior to...

Topeka, KS (LifeNews.com) -- Like no other state in the country, Kansas has became ground zero in the abortion battle as pro-life elected officials and groups have battled with the courts to get abortion laws there enforced. On Monday, Kansas legislators called on Attorney General Paul Morrison to uphold a late-term abortion law. They want Morrison to put charges against Wichita late-term abortion practitioner George Tiller back in place. Former top attorney Phill Kline charged Tiller with dozens of counts of violating a law that allows late-term abortions only in legitimate medical situations affecting a woman's health. However, Paul McHugh,...

LODA, Illinois, June 25, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A study by a private opinion research firm has shown that since the height of the “abortion wars” in the 1980’s and 90’s, public opinion in the US has made dramatic changes towards the pro-life position. Christopher Blunt, co-author of the study and founder of Overbrook Research, wrote that the analysis shows a complete turnaround in the support for abortion in the last fifteen years. The study, Turnaround on Abortion, cites the debate over partial birth abortion and the move towards a less confrontational approach as one reason for a “dramatic” change...

Under new Guidelines on Abortion (click here) being considered by the Department of Health under the new minister Mr Michael McGimpsey, there will be a loophole in the current law which, if used to its full extent will allow for the horror of partial birth abortion. For all ordinary people who haven’t yet heard of this horror, it’s a process whereby a child is aborted (read “murdered”) as it is being born. If you think this is too horrific even for abortionists to stoop too, it has been going on in America for years. Recently the Americans have passed a...

    News Full Incriminating Interview Video and Transcript Discussing Tiller Abortion Records Now Available Suit Filed Against KS Legislator In Attack On Abortion Protester The Incriminating Video About Tiller Criminal Case That AG Morrison Doesn’t Want You To See Media Misinformation About Abortion Records Statements Countered By WND.com VIDEO: O’Reilly Confronts “Tiller the Baby Killer” In Wichita Morrison Threatens Expert Witness With Arrest, Orders Him To Stop Talking To Operation Rescue VIDEO: Key Witness In Tiller Criminal Case Says AG Morrison Never Contacted Him Expert Witness in Criminal Abortion Case Drops Bombshell Testimony Urgent Tiller Briefing To Be Held...

Topeka, KS (LifeNews.com) -- An analyst who reviewed the files of the women who had late-term abortions at George Tiller’s Wichita abortion business said Tiller did the abortions illegally by not following the state law’s guidelines for when they can be done. Psychiatrist Paul McHugh said the abortions were done for specious depression reasons rather than because of legitimate medical concerns. McHugh, a professor at Johns Hopkins University said the records revealed the women having the abortions were distressed for a variety of reasons that ma be normal during pregnancy but that none of the women had "substantial and irreversible"...

Lansing, MI (LifeNews.com) -- Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox says he is planning to study a decision released earlier this week by a federal appeals court striking down a Michigan law that bans partial-birth abortions. He said he is considering appealing the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court in order to get the law upheld."We're in the process of reviewing the court's opinion. Obviously, we will be considering it in light of the Supreme Court's Gonzales ruling, which upheld the federal ban on partial-birth abortions," Cox spokesman Rusty Hills said Tuesday. The nation's high court upheld the national partial-birth abortion...

Baton Rouge, LA (LifeNews.com) -- A Louisiana Senate committee has approved a bill that would ban partial-birth abortions in the state. A similar measure has already been approved by the state House and it would help local and state officials better enforce the national ban the Supreme Court upheld as constitutional in April. Sen. Ben Nevers is the sponsor of the Senate version of the partial-birth abortion ban that the committee approved on a unanimous vote. It now heads to the full Senate. “Many of us know that partial-birth abortion is one of the most gruesome procedures ever allowed in...

America has killed twenty million children during this long distraction, all in pursuit of a ban that from the beginning Never Had The Authority To Prevent Even A Single Abortion. Dr. Dobson, you and these other leaders needed to warn Christians of all this, but instead you joined together in calling evil good. Please stop foisting onto the church the falsehood that this gruesome ruling will "protect children." This decision, to use your word, is more "Naziesque" than the PBA it regulates. This wicked ruling does not even prohibit aborting partially born children. It is not a ban, but a...

Baton Rouge, LA (LifeNews.com) -- A Louisiana state House committee has signed off on a bill that would prohibit partial-birth abortions in the state. The measure is a reaction to the Supreme Court's recent decision upholding a federal partial-birth abortion ban and a means to step up enforcement of the ban there. The high court's decision reaffirmed the ability of states to approve pro-life laws limiting abortion and lawmakers are eager to get started. Baton Rouge Rep. Gary Beard, the sponsor of the pro-life bill HB 614, called the grisly three-day-long abortion procedure “a practice that crosses the line between...

This time it may be the Democrats who are getting religion. Former Sen. John Edwards invoked "My Lord" when asked about moral influences on his life in the first Democratic presidential debate. At a campaign event on the day of the Virginia Tech massacre, he offered a prayer and — in a pointed break from Democratic candidates' usual wariness of offending religious minorities — closed with the words "in Christ's name." Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. comfortably works in references to his faith at public appearances. Even before his presidential candidacy, he gave a well-received speech arguing for a greater role...

Shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court issued its ruling in Gonzales v. Carhart (the case that involved a challenge to the federal law restricting so-called partial birth abortion), I received an email reporting the decision with a copy of the ruling attached. Unlike many whom the media identify as leaders in the pro-life movement, I felt no inclination to leap for joy at the news that the Court's opinion upheld the constitutionality of the law. In the first place, I have never been convinced that the legislative action in question had much significance for the pro-life cause. I believe it...

Reuters reports that the May 24 issue of New England Journal of Medicine will include a group of commentaries about the effect that last week’s Supreme Court's ruling upholding the 2003 Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act has on "the practice of medicine": "With this decision the Supreme Court has sanctioned the intrusion of legislation into the day-to-day practice of medicine," Dr. Jeffrey Drazen, editor of the journal …"Both health care providers and patients should be alarmed by the current degree of intrusion by our government into the practice of medicine and even more so by the apparent trajectory that it seems...

NEW YORK, April 25, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Planned Parenthood called for a day of nationwide rallies and demonstrations in protest of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to uphold the federal abortion ban on the gruesome partial-birth abortion procedure. In a press release, Planned Parenthood said it was summoning all pro-abortion advocates to “express outrage” today on the third anniversary of the abortion rally, the 2004 March for Women’s Lives. "Last Wednesday’s decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold the federal abortion ban in its entirety represents a serious setback for women’s health and safety, and is truly ‘an alarming...

It was buried in the avalanche of coverage of the horrible shootings at Virginia Tech. But the Supreme Court's partial-birth ruling will likely have a much bigger impact on Campaign. The human toll is unfathomable. And the heartfelt debate triggered by the slaughter at Virginia Tech—over why America allows such easy access to guns, and how best to determine when a troubled student might turn into a psychopath—will rage on for years. But as a political matter, the killings in Blacksburg, Va., will likely have little impact—on the presidential campaign of 2008, at least. That race will, however, be affected...

THIRTY-TWO years ago a Suffolk County jury in Massachusetts found me guilty of manslaughter in the death of a fetus during the performance of a legal second-trimester abortion. In that particular case, the abortion was carried out by hysterotomy, a major surgical procedure often described as a mini-caesarean section, after multiple attempts at saline infusion had failed. Both hysterotomy and saline infusion are techniques which are effective in terminating pregnancies, but both of them carry substantial risks for the pregnant woman. The best, safest procedure for my patient would have been one called dilation and evacuation, or D & E....

After the Supreme Court upheld the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act on Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said at a news conference: "I would only say that this isn't the only decision that a lot of us wish that [Justice Samuel] Alito weren't there and [former justice Sandra Day] O'Connor were there." Does that mean Reid was repudiating his 2003 Senate vote in favor of the bill? No, he told me Thursday, he was talking about other decisions by Alito. Reid, an effective legislator and canny politician, reflects a dilemma on abortion among Democrats, currently flying high against dispirited...

No reflective, thoughtful, or civilized person in America this week could dare to look upon the unwarranted bloodshed of the innocent and have even one ounce of tolerance for such actions. The trauma these events had on our collective psyche as a nation seemed to erode differences amongst people who see themselves as separated by partisan disagreement. For these few days the moral absolute of not shedding innocent blood, even the Old Testament biblical mandate of "Thou shall not commit murder", was easily agreed upon. Yes? For Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards the answer is a shocking, "NO!"...

Very strange week for America this week. How do we measure it? It was the most historic massacre of our history, with copycat threats all week long, and another hostage taken at NASA ending in death yesterday. It was also the most important week in the prevention of murder of innocent life since 1973. All the deaths from the high-profile incidents nationwide add up to less than 40 dead. In only ONE NYC area "medical clinic" 1500 lives were saved. There are hundreds of such clinics in the New York City metro alone. We were unable to stop some crazed...

Judicial nominations just took front and center for presidential nominees and the 2008 primaries. The magnitude of who gets to appoint justices to the United States Supreme Court is supremely illustrated by the Court’s ruling today upholding the congressional ban on partial birth abortion (PBA). The newest justice, Samuel A. Alito, joined the majority of the Supreme Court in a 5-4 ruling in Gonzales v. Carhart. Put simply, it’s Sam v. Sandra. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor voted with the Court majority in 2000 when it struck down Nebraska’s ban on PBA in Stenberg v. Carhart, based on the law’s failure...