April 18, 2007 is the one-year anniversary of the Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling upholding a federal ban on certain abortion procedures even though the law did not include an exception to protect a woman’s health. And that ruling, which significantly chips away at women's reproductive freedom, upheld the federal ban even though the Court had struck down a virtually identical state law several years ago. What had changed in the interim?  Well, as Justice Ginsburg observed in her dissent in last year's case, only the composition of the Court. Justice O'Connor, who had voted with the majority to strike down the state law, had been replaced by Justice Alito, who voted in last year's case to uphold the ban.

Samuel Alito, an extreme, far right nominee, was put on the Supreme Court by President Bush and complicit Senators.

I've been wondering how long it would be before someone in the mainstream called a spade a spade, where this year's Supreme Court term is concerned.  Finally, this morning, the New York Times almost hits the mark, in its editorial Justice Denied.

It draws the nexus between this Court's decisions this year and the dismantling of Warren Court jurisprudence, particularly as it relates to the rights of the oppressed:

At the end of its first full term, Chief Justice John Roberts’s court is emerging as the Warren court’s mirror image.

The Supreme Court is turning our world upside down.  We tried to tell the Democrats, but did they listen?  Not so’s you’d notice.  Somebody has to light a fire under them, and I guess that somebody has to be you and me.  From The Hill’s Pundits Blog:

Brown v. Board of Education, Roe v. Wade Are in Mortal Peril

Brent Budowsky

The United States Supreme Court is moving to reverse long-cherished American notions of constitutional law.

The divisions that plague American society have invaded the sanctity of the court, with angry dissents and at times personal criticism among justices that illustrate both the passions and dangers of the debate.

MORE MORE MORE

At Balkinization, Brian Tamaha writes a terrific piece on Judge Richard Posner's "pragmatic realism":

His views on these two topics can be summarized as follows: Posner believes that judging on the Supreme Court is almost entirely political, and he believes that judging on the Court of Appeals (his court), and judging generally, is substantially political. This view of the political nature of judging is widely shared among legal academics and political scientists, although many judges disagree. Posner, furthermore, advocates that judges should decide cases in a pragmatic fashion, oriented toward rendering the most reasonable decision in a given case (all things considered).

Posner seems to, unfortunately, correctly describe the current state of affairs. But he is wrong to believe that it should be this way. I'll explain why on the flip.