NYT’s “reincarnation of pro-life” desperately hopes Roe will rise from the ashes

The New York Times published an interesting piece by Emily Bazelon yesterday. Bazelon is actually the pro-abortion journalist whose 2009 interview with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg yielded the Justice’s infamous admission of the eugenic basis for abortion: “Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of.”

Bazelon’s new article, titled, “The Reincarnation of Pro-Life,” is ostensibly about the contemporary strategy and victories of the pro-life movement, i.e., the movement’s “reincarnation,” but it actually reads more like a desperate attempt to convince the reader (or perhaps the author) that Roe v. Wade and pro-abortion jurisprudence will be able to rise from their own impending ashes. After just two paragraphs, Bazelon rather conspicuously segues from reporting on pro-life victories to fear-mongering about abortion access:

Bazelon has a strong rebuke for Maddow that is a fascinating summary of the current pro-abortion legal strategy:

Bazelon’s statement should have one caveat: pro-abort litigators definitely ARE “running scared”–they are running scared of new, innovative pro-life legislation that most directly challenges Roe v. Wade. Not only is the limited case selection of the other side “remarkable,” as Bazelon says–a better word would be “ironic.” Up until now, it’s been hard to find a pro-life law that Planned Parenthood, NARAL, NOW, the ACLU, or CRR have not challenged in court. Nancy Northup’s statement is such an about-face that she might need to see a chiropractor.

But dutifully ignoring the irony, Bazelon continues the remainder of her article with a pep talk for pro-aborts about their new legal strategy:

I was rather shocked to read the bolded sentence from Bazelon. As a pro-abortion legal scholar, she should be very familiar with the criticism for “paternalsim” and supporting “junk science” Justice Kennedy received after his majority opinion in Gonzales v. Carhart strongly asserted the states’ interest in protecting women from the trauma of abortion. In fact, Bazelon herself partook of this criticism in her 2009 interview with Ginsburg and in 2008, when she scathingly referenced “the heap of paternalism that Justice Anthony Kennedy started climbing two years ago, in his opinion in Gonzales v. Carhart.” Bazelon should back down from the heap of wishful thinking she is climbing if she thinks Justice Kennedy will be sympathetic to the abortion lobby’s arguments that waiting periods and informed consent for abortion are “radical.”

If Bazelon & co. think South Dakota’s new law is “radical,” what must they think of the 20-week bans in NE, IN, and ID? Rachel Maddow and Terry O’Neill stated it plainly–they are some of the scariest boogeymen hiding under the surgical bed right now for pro-aborts. Bazelon writes obtusely that these laws are not being challenged for political reasons:

Bazelon is naive to think that the only reason these laws are not being challenged is because of the effect a public debate on late-term abortion will have on the popular consciousness. The real reason is, as Maddow and O’Neill noted, that the 20-week bans directly confront Roe‘s viability standard. Bazelon suggests that because these bans will only affect a small portion of abortions, her movement can let them slide for now, but this is shockingly myopic. What will they do, then, when confronted with Ohio’s proposed “Heartbeat Bill,” which will ban virtually all abortions in that state? What will they do when confronted with Mississippi’s Personhood amendment, which is almost certain to pass this fall? These laws are not “largely symbolic”–these are the effective abortion bans we have been waiting for.

Pro-abortion legal activists like Bazelon and Northup are trying to fight pro-life laws like it’s still the 1990s–they are litigating the sort of waiting period and informed consent cases they would have 20 years ago. The real fight is with innovative new laws that challenge Roe‘s studied inattention to the humanity of the unborn child, and so long as pro-abortion litigants continue to run from that fight, we should continue to legislate all over them.