wed 30 nov / 10 am EST

FROM November 30, 2005

NOW v. Schiedler hits the S-court while O'Connor still presides.

"At issue," says the Feminist Majority brief, "is a nationwide injunction prohibiting PLAN and Operation Rescue from conducting blockades, trespassing, damaging property, or committing acts of violence directed at abortion clinics. The injunction has not affected peaceful protests." --Essentially, whether women and clinics can be protected from far-right pro-life groups that would circumvent a woman's legal right to abortion--and obstruct her ability to obtain it-- via threats, intimidation, and violence. Factor in related bombings, murders, and attempted murders, and fundamentally, it becomes a value judgment in human terms--potentially assigning a measure of import to the lives of women and doctors, whether our rights are worth protecting...whether *we* are worth protecting, based on our choices. (We may have the right, but does the gov't have our backs if we exercise it?)

"Women's access to reproductive health care is at great risk," said Gandy. "Time and again, our fate is put in the hands of nine justices. With three critical cases set for hearing, the power and consequence of who sits on the Supreme Court will be demonstrated mightily on Wednesday."