NARAL must mean Stenberg v. Carhart, the 5-4 decision saying that laws banning so-called "partial birth" abortions are (at least, as commonly written) unconstitutional. There's info about the Carhart case at http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/99-830.ZS.html .
NARAL's claim is both hypocritical and inaccurate. Justice Kennedy, who was one of the four dissenting votes in Carhart, voted with the majority in Casey, and it doesn't appear his opinion has changed. Kennedy's dissent in Carhart still seems to support Casey's "undue burden" standard, he just doesn't feel that banning the "partial birth" proceedure but keeping other proceedures available constitutes an undue burden.
I think Kennedy's opinion is wrongheaded in many ways; but there's no reason to think he'd vote to overturn Roe entirely, as NARAL knows very well. But if they admitted that, they'd have to admit that Roe has a 6-3 majority, and is more secure now than it was in either of the last two elections.
I say the claim is hypocritical because the candidate they support has pledged to sign legislation banning late-term abortions - legislation pretty similar to what the court struck down in Carhart (although a little bit saner because Gore would make an exception to protect the mother's health, whereas the law in Carhart only had an exception to protect the mother's life).
--BD
----- Original Message ----- From: "Justin Schwartz" <jkschw at hotmail.com> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Saturday, November 04, 2000 9:18 PM Subject: Re: Sarah Jessica Parker pressed into service
:
: The case referred to is probably Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which replced
: the Roe trimester structure with the O'Connor "undue burden" standard for
: what a state can't do to limit a woman's right to choose. An "undue burden"
: is one that tees off Justice O'Connor. --jks
:
: >
: >
: > > The [NARAL] ad asks viewers to "please consider" the fact that a 5-4
: > > Supreme Court decision this year "narrowly protected" Roe v. Wade,
: > > noting, "A single vote saved a woman's right to choose."
: >
: >Does anyone know what decision that are referring to and where I could
: >find a summary?
: >
: >Michael
: >
: >__________________________________________________________________________
: >Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak at panix.com
: >
:
: _________________________________________________________________________
: Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.
:
: Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at
: http://profiles.msn.com.
: