STARE DECISIS - Lat. "to stand by that which is decided." The principal that the precedent decisions are to be followed by the courts; To abide or adhere to decided cases. It is a general maxim that when a point has been settled by decision, it forms a precedent which is not afterwards to be departed from.
If you Google Stare Decisis + Alito confirmation, you get over 30,000 hits. I recall him using that phrase exactly when he was facing the Senate and confirmation to the court.
I bet Senator Durbin does too:
SEN. DURBIN: Most of us are troubled by this 1985 memo. You said yesterday, you would have an open mind when it came to this issue. I'm sorry to report that your memo seeking a job in the Reagan administration does not evidence an open mind. It evidences a mind that sadly is closed in some areas. And yet, when we have tried to press you on this critical statement that you made in that application, a statement which was made by you that said the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion, you've been unwilling to distance yourself and to say that you disagree with that.
ALITO: The things that I said in the 1985 memo were a true expression of my views at the time from my vantage point as an attorney in the Solicitor General's office. But that was 20 years ago and a great deal has happened in the case law since then. Thornburg was decided and Webster and then Casey and a number of other decisions. So the stare decisis analysis would have to take account of that entire line of case law.
I knew that little weasel wasn’t trustworthy. I knew it. And today, he proved me right.
I am confident that one of the attorneys who post here will address today’s Supreme Court decision after they read the opinions in much more detail and context than I can, but that doesn’t make me any less pissed off right now.
My anger comes from being female, and a health care professional. I know that Intact Dilation and Extraction is a medical procedure that is never undertaken lightly, and is indeed quite rare. When it is exercised, it is a last resort option. It is never an afterthought form of birth control. It is only exercised in the event of danger to the life and health of the mother or in the case of a doomed fetus.
Many years ago, I used to work in a high-risk obstetrics and fertility practice. Our goal was always a live birth and a healthy outcome. But in that practice, we didn’t always get what we wanted. Sometimes parents were faced with heart-wrenching decisions. The kind of decision where you have to decide which option is less bad, because none of them are good. Horrible decisions that no one should ever have to make.
Today, some of those couples just got dealt a sucker-punch.
Now, there will be women forced to carry doomed fetuses to term. To remain pregnant knowing that they are not bringing home a healthy baby at the end of it all. And worse still, there are the physical dangers to the mother.
I could write a thesis in laboratory medicine about what can go wrong at the end of a failed pregnancy. But instead I am going to tell you about one disorder, DIC, or Disseminated intravascular coagulation. It is a terribly nasty disorder, and quite often fatal. Fortunately it is quite rare.
The leading cause of the disorder in reproductive-age females is intrauterine fetal demise.
On Mother’s Day of last year, a woman came in to the labor and delivery unit of the hospital where I was working at the time, and delivered a stillborn infant. Two days later, she was critical, suffering from DIC. Frankly, I don’t know if she made it or not. She was still alive when I finished my last shift that week, and she was gone when I returned. But I never looked in the computer to check the details of her demise. I didn’t want to know if she left horizontal.
I don’t care if it is only five additional women a year who end up contracting DIC, and I don’t care if all five recover…The fact remains that they should have the right to control their own bodies and make the decisions that are best for them and their families.
This SCOTUS decision smacks of misogyny and willful ignorance. And it is condescending as hell. Families faced with the tragedies that lead to the decision to opt for the procedure are not making flip, split-second, devil-may-care decisions. They do not deserve to have a heartbreaking decision that could save the womans life denied them.
And we won't even get into compromise of future fertility. That was quite a position for the "pro-family" conservatives to take...
I hope this issue is revisited soon and this bad decision is overturned in short order.
If it is not, ladies and Gentlemen, meet President Hillary Clinton.
