Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Life Links 3/6/07

Here's a spectacularly bad editorial on stem cell research entitled "Stem cell research is the only hope for our future" by Cal-State Fullerton student Cindy Cafferty. Paging Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Probably the worst part is when Cafferty tries to explain the financial cost of Proposition 73 (6 billion dollars "might cost us a penny or two") and then acts like California's taxes ( 7.25% sales tax, which is highest in the nation and 9.3% income tax if you make more than $40,000 ) - aren't that bad ("California, comparatively speaking, is in the bottom of income tax revenue collection by national standards").


An Iowan takes issue with the DesMoines Register's assertion that "Destroying (human embryos) isn't the same as destroying a human life."


Stuart Taylor has a prediction on how the Supreme Court will rule on the federal partial-birth abortion ban amongst other predictions.
Abortion. The Roberts Court has already voted in a big abortion case, on the constitutionality of the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003. But we probably won't know who won until June.

Pro-choicers noisily fear, and pro-lifers hope, that the Court will uphold this congressional ban on a late-term abortion procedure likened by critics to infanticide because the fetus is destroyed when mostly outside the womb. In the process, many predict, the justices will overrule a major 2000 decision striking down a very similar Nebraska ban. O'Connor was the fifth vote then. Alito is now, and this will be the first salvo in a conservative assault on Roe v. Wade.

My predictions are different: The Court will indeed uphold the federal "partial-birth" ban -- thanks to the Alito-O'Connor swap -- but only by construing it so narrowly that it will have very little effect. And the Court will never overrule Roe v. Wade.

Specifically, the justices will limit the federal ban to "D&X," or dilation and extraction, abortions, the most grisly late-term procedure, and exempt "D&E," or dilation and evacuation, abortions, which are much more common. The Court may also carve out an exception to the ban for those exceedingly rare cases in which more than a few medical experts consider D&X safer than D&E. The justices will narrow but stop short of overruling the 2000 Nebraska decision.

During the argument on this case, Roberts seemed to be pushing for a narrow interpretation of the federal ban. Such a split-the-difference approach might appeal to the conflicted Kennedy; he is the fifth pro-Roe vote, but he wanted to uphold the Nebraska "partial-birth" ban. In future cases, the justices will narrow Roe v. Wade (as they started doing in 1992) but strike down any state laws making it difficult for most women to get abortions.

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous2:12 AM

    I'm dying to read this "spectacularly bad editorial."
    Sadly, the link you've provided is defunct. As is the Iowan's issue (link). As is your argument I suspect.
    Incidentally, and for your information and future reference, reporters rarely author the head (aka headline); should you wish to page Obi-Wan, perhaps a call-out to the editor, not the writer, is in order.

    But I digress,--sorry, just trying to follow the format of your blog.

    You purport to be an op-ed critic (salary.com/salarywizard is your idea of an authoritative source/link, really? Ever heard of Tax Foundation or State Franchise Tax Board?), based on your lead line.

    Aside from criticizing a collegiate's op-ed piece; relaying an Iowan's issue on embryos; conjuring some of that aforementioned Obi-Wan magic to somehow segway into Taylor's regurgitated prediction on the Court's ruling--the topic you've been dying to discuss--what do YOU have to say?

    Well, besides the oh-so-obvious. Alito made himself clear well before he was appointed to the Supreme Court. (Planned Parenthood v. Casey ring a bell?)
    Kennedy wrote the opinion. I read it.
    Doubtful anyone will read yours.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm dying to read this "spectacularly bad editorial."
    Sadly, the link you've provided is defunct. As is the Iowan's issue (link). As is your argument I suspect.
    Incidentally, and for your information and future reference, reporters rarely author the head (aka headline); should you wish to page Obi-Wan, perhaps a call-out to the editor, not the writer, is in order.

    But I digress,--sorry, just trying to follow the format of your blog.

    You purport to be an op-ed critic (salary.com/salarywizard is your idea of an authoritative source/link, really? Ever heard of Tax Foundation or State Franchise Tax Board?), based on your lead line.

    Aside from criticizing a collegiate's op-ed piece; relaying an Iowan's issue on embryos; conjuring some of that aforementioned Obi-Wan magic to somehow segway into Taylor's regurgitated prediction on the Court's ruling--the topic you've been dying to discuss--what do YOU have to say?

    Well, besides the oh-so-obvious. Alito made himself clear well before he was appointed to the Supreme Court. (Planned Parenthood v. Casey ring a bell?)
    Kennedy wrote the opinion. I read it.
    Doubtful anyone will read yours.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous2:20 AM

    I'm dying to read this "spectacularly bad editorial."
    Sadly, the link you've provided is defunct. As is the Iowan's issue (link). As is your argument I suspect.
    Incidentally, and for your information and future reference, reporters rarely author the head (aka headline); should you wish to page Obi-Wan, perhaps a call-out to the editor, not the writer, is in order.

    But I digress,--sorry, just trying to follow the format of your blog.

    You purport to be an op-ed critic (salary.com/salarywizard is your idea of an authoritative source/link, really? Ever heard of Tax Foundation or State Franchise Tax Board?), based on your lead line.

    Aside from criticizing a collegiate's op-ed piece; relaying an Iowan's issue on embryos; conjuring some of that aforementioned Obi-Wan magic to somehow segway into Taylor's regurgitated prediction on the Court's ruling--the topic you've been dying to discuss--what do YOU have to say?

    Well, besides the oh-so-obvious. Alito made himself clear well before he was appointed to the Supreme Court. (Planned Parenthood v. Casey ring a bell?)
    Kennedy wrote the opinion. I read it.
    Doubtful anyone will read yours.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi Cindy,
    Yes - after more than 5 years, some links don't last so we can't read the full editorial you wrote unless you have it somewhere and then we can go over how bad it was. Unfortunately, your ability to make an argument hasn't improved in that time. Nor do you seem to understand blogging as you somehow think attacking me for linking to articles/other blogs (something which some blogs do) is somehow dumb.

    But I wonder if you still think spending $3 billion (at a cost of $6 billion to California tax payers) or as you so laughably put it "a penny or two" on embryonic stem cell research is a good idea as we've seen none of the promised miraculous cures.

    ReplyDelete