i’m wading through the decision. i’m sure i’ll have more cohesive thoughts to post soon. for now, i’m mostly struggling with this:

a federal law bans D&X. it allows D&E. a bare majority of justices find this constitutional because the law a) is not overly vague as to the description of the banned procedure; b) does not unduly burden a woman’s ability to get an abortion in the 2nd trimester; and c) because congress decided that a D&X is never necessary to preserve the health of the mother, the lack of a health exception doesn’t create a constitutional conundrum.

okay.

now riddle me this: why did congress decide to ban the D&X? is it somehow a less gruesome procedure than the D&E? reading the reams of graphic descriptions of both, i can’t see how it is. is there medical consensus that a D&X is never the better option than a D&E? nope. the precautionary principle put forward in earlier decisions - namely that where lack of medical consensus exists, the law should err on the side of the patient and doctor - gets merrily tossed out the window.

this is how the court describes a D&E: (below the fold, for those who do not wish to read of such things)

After sufficient dilation the surgical operation can commence. The woman is placed under general anesthesia or conscious sedation. The doctor, often guided by ultrasound, inserts grasping forceps through the woman’s cervix and into the uterus to grab the fetus. The doctor grips a fetal part with the forceps and pulls it back through the cervix and vagina, continuing to pull even after meeting resistance from the cervix. The friction causes the fetus to tear apart. For example, a leg might be ripped off the fetus as it is pulled through the cervix and out of the woman. The process of evacuating the fetus piece by piece continues until it has been completely re-moved. A doctor may make 10 to 15 passes with the forceps to evacuate the fetus in its entirety, though some-times removal is completed with fewer passes. Once the fetus has been evacuated, the placenta and any remaining fetal material are suctioned or scraped out of the uterus. The doctor examines the different parts to ensure the entire fetal body has been removed.

and a description of a D&X is pulled from the congressional testimony of what the Court describes as “an abortion doctor”:

In the usual intact D&E the fetus’ head lodges in the cervix, and dilation is insufficient to allow it to pass. See, e.g., ibid.; App. in No. 05–380, at 577; App. in No. 05–1382, at 74, 282. Haskell explained the next step as follows: “‘At this point, the right-handed surgeon slides thefingers of the left [hand] along the back of the fetus and “hooks” the shoulders of the fetus with the index and ring fingers (palm down). “‘While maintaining this tension, lifting the cervix and applying traction to the shoulders with the fin-gers of the left hand, the surgeon takes a pair of blunt curved Metzenbaum scissors in the right hand. He carefully advances the tip, curved down, along the spine and under his middle finger until he feels it con-tact the base of the skull under the tip of his middle finger.“‘[T]he surgeon then forces the scissors into the base of the skull or into the foramen magnum. Having safely entered the skull, he spreads the scissors to enlarge the opening.“‘The surgeon removes the scissors and introduces a suction catheter into this hole and evacuates the skull contents. With the catheter still in place, he applies traction to the fetus, removing it completely from the patient.’” H. R. Rep. No. 108–58, p. 3 (2003).

in essence, congress has banned a procedure that quickly kills the fetus, while allowing a procedure that slowly kills the fetus by taking it apart, piece by piece. how is that possibly a logical decision?