Supreme Court Ruling Upholding Partial Birth Abortion

04/18/2007

Paul Munnis


The popular media stereotype is that Democrats will be devastated by today’s Supreme Court ruling upholding a ban on partial birth abortion. But it just isn’t so.

The media have painted abortion matters as a divider between Republicans and Democrats because that is how the Bush propaganda machine chose to position it as a wedge issue in order to split voters between political parties for the 2004 election. Yet scratch a Democrat and he or she is just as liable to be against abortion as any Republican.

Common sense should tell people that much of the Democratic Party is made up of Roman Catholic including people like Kerry, and Kennedy.

The Democratic public position on abortion has actually been a bit different than has been portrayed by the media.

Democrats want Supreme Curt rulings of a Constitutional nature to be upheld and supported by those pledged to uphold and protect our Constitution. You can’t do that when you pledge to overthrow Supreme Court rulings as has been the GOP candidate position. Refusing to obey Roe v Wade was not seen as proper behavior by Democrats with respect to supporting Supreme Court Constitutional rulings while Republicans think that if you don't like a law you can just ignore it.

Thus you will see many Democrats upholding today’s Court ruling. We recognize that the Supreme Court has spoken and that they have laid down the law of the land on partial birth abortion. We respect the ruling and we respect the Court. We will uphold and suport the Constitution and that means acquiescing to our Supreme Court.

With that said there are also Democrats who disagree with the Supreme Court and who look at Mr. Bush’s stuffing of the Court with total disgust. They see today’s ruling as another nail in the coffin of personal freedom to having the liberty to decide how to manage one’s own body.

So don’t expect the Democratic Party to rant and rave over this Supreme Court decision. Instead, expect Democrats to uphold it. If Republicans want to gloat over the ruling and portray it as a defeat for Democrats then they can go right ahead and do so, I doubt it makes much difference at a Party level although individual Democrats may have a reaction to the baiting. The GOP talking heads were already talking about making this the key issue of the 2008 election. How sad is that when we need to rebuild America?

There is so much that the GOP has done to divide America and voters that they should be ashamed or the morality of their Party and its behavior. Hopefully that will soon change and in the meantime Democrats should behave with grace and patience over these wedge issues.