Justice Ginsburg:
My objection to your vote in favor of striking down the partial-birth abortion ban must needs begin with your opening statement: I write separately only to stress that amidst all the emotional uproar caused by an abortion case, we should not lose sight of the character of Nebraska’s “partial birth abortion” law. As the Court observes, this law does not save any fetus from destruction, for it targets only “a method of performing abortion.”
The Justices repeatedly have decided fetuses do not have the same rights as viable human beings and therefore are not endowed with certain inalienable rights. Therefore, if we who know LIFE and recognize it as such and we who understand the character of this murder wish to speak on common ground, we must refer to the method by which it is carried out.
Two hundred and fifty years of slavery left a generation of Americans to pay for slavery, this crime against humanity, with a blood bath in proportions this country has never seen. “This mighty scourge of war.” President Abraham Lincoln called it. In the historical perspective of crimes against humanity, your judgement on the pre-born will become a judgement on us as a people. When you are gone, what scourge will we have to endure to pay for this?
Currently we selectively eliminate handicapped infants and can do more and more highly selective elimination with the genome projects and this court decision. There has always been a preference in some cultures for selection against females. I know personally of abortions forced by boyfriends and husbands that women are dependent upon for support. The absence of respect for LIFE by the presence of choice to kill or not to kill for a full generation…sows and reaps just has it always has. Your judgement has become OUR judgement. Judgement has already passed on us and I am sorry to say you will not see its full flower. Carol Brown