"The Year they closed the courts"

The newly established Supreme Court has recently made a series of rulings that should make every pro-choice supporter shudder. While we all knew this would be a conservative Supreme Court, we didn’t know to what extent until recently. This should become a time when anyone who has ever cared about women’s reproductive rights should be up in arms fighting to make sure previous cases are not overturned. For years now, many have believed cases like Roe. Vs. Wade were untouchable. But now the Conservative revolution has begun in the United States.

States that already severely limit a woman’s right to choose will become battle grounds for the conservatives trying to force their morals and faiths unto others. “The court upheld the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act in a 5-to-4 decision that was a reversal of course and a reframing of the abortion issue. The decision in Gonzales v. Carhart, No. 05-380, was the first time the court had upheld a prohibition on a specific method of abortion. The law, enacted in 2003, subjects doctors to fines and prison terms.” We must also be there fighting to keep freedoms alive if we hope to never see Roe Vs. Wade overturned.
Justice Roberts has played his cards in a way to keep citizens unsuspecting of what may be to come by limiting what the Court did this last term. “Other precedents were left standing, at least for the time being, by decisions that avoided direct overrulings while providing a roadmap for future challenges. In several cases, a frustrated Justice Scalia prodded Chief Justice Roberts to move further and faster to overturn precedents that both men clearly dislike.” The court heard the fewest cases since 1953 this term, overturning three previous heard cases, trampling free speech rights and making businesses jump for joy.

In this time we must be aware of the take over of the Supreme Court, a court so conservative that only Texas federal and state courts remain to the right of it. Justice Breyer summed everything up when he declared: “It is not often in the law that so few have so quickly changed so much.” Rights that we have worked tirelessly for are now in danger of being overturned. This court has already upheld partial anti-abortion laws, which are the first anti-choice rulings since 1973. We must work to ensure that it does not persist. If you want to help the cause, click here.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/01/washington/01scotus.html?ei=5070&en=2838a521304bff85&ex=1184904000&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1184785932-FzR4Y5s27LETwIC3MRVX9g

Was Ronald Reagan pro-choice?

Fred Thompson was supposed to be the next great Republican politician; some even called him the “New Ronald Reagan.” This prompts the question: Was Ronald Reagan pro-choice? Republicans were led to believe that Thompson could be the next great leader of this country and mobilize citizens much like Reagan did. Until last week that is. News broke that Thompson started working as an abortion rights lobbyist in 1991, just years before becoming a Senator. If this is true, what could it mean for the GOP? If this has been kept under the rug for so long, how do we know Reagan wasn’t pro-choice? He never passed one act against abortion – so, how do we know? Maybe the GOP is a party built upon lies and cover-ups. Could it also be possible that this anti-choice stance Thompson has now is nothing more than poor acting, quite possibly the same poor acting we saw out of both Thompson and Reagan? While this may seem to be the makings of an episode of “Law and Order” we must keep it mind, this is our lives.

The most important question out of all of this still remains: Why would Fred Thompson do such a thing? Did he believe in women’s rights? Is this just a left-wing conspiracy? Is his anti-choice agenda a poor act?

Or maybe it was just for the money.

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/CNN_profiles_Fred_Thompsons_abortion_woes_0710.html