Anti-abortion movement member calls USSC Carhart decision "more wicked than Roe"

[BurtWorm]

Two wings--one far right and the other extreme right--are duking it out over the meaning of Gonzalez v. Carhart. A Post article even suggests that the decision may have caused more harm to the anti-choice movement than to the pro-choice side, precisely because of the vehemence of arguments on both sides. Essentially, a rift has opened between the "incrementalists" who support Carhart and are in bed with the GOP and the absolutists who view Carhart as a mirage and those who support it as servants of the Republican devil:

:woohoo: <=== smiley undergoing Schadenfreude


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/03/AR2007060301218_pf.html



Supreme Court Ruling Brings Split in Antiabortion Movement

By Alan Cooperman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 4, 2007; A03

...

In an open letter to Dobson that was published as a full-page ad May 23 in the Colorado Springs Gazette, Focus on the Family's hometown newspaper, and May 30 in the Washington Times, the heads of five small but vocal groups called the Carhart decision "wicked," and accused Dobson of misleading Christians by applauding it.

Carhart is even "more wicked than Roe" because it is "not a ban, but a partial-birth abortion manual" that affirms the legality of late-term abortions "as long as you follow its guidelines," the ads said. "Yet, for many years you have misled the Body of Christ about the ban, and now about the ruling itself."

A Focus on the Family spokesman said that Dobson would not comment. But the organization's vice president, Tom Minnery, said that Dobson rejoiced over the ruling "because we, and most pro-lifers, are sophisticated enough to know we're not going to win a total victory all at once. We're going to win piece by piece."

Doctors adopted the late-term procedure "out of convenience," Minnery added. "The old procedure, which is still legal, involves using forceps to pull the baby apart in utero, which means there is greater legal liability and danger of internal bleeding from a perforated uterus. So we firmly believe there will be fewer later-term abortions as a result of this ruling."

Brian Rohrbough, president of Colorado Right to Life and a signer of the ads, disagreed.

"All you have to do is read the ruling, and you will find that this will never save a single child because even though the justices say this one technique is mostly banned -- not completely banned -- there are lots of other techniques, and they even encourage abortionists to find less shocking means to kill late-term babies," he said.

...