Score one for abortion opponents… The patriarchs on the Supreme Court bench have handed down a ruling that affects a Woman’s Right to Choose. Men making choices that affect women’s lives… We’ve come a long way baby — NOT.

The 5-4 ruling said the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act that Congress passed and President Bush signed into law in 2003 does not violate a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion.

The opponents of the act “have not demonstrated that the Act would be unconstitutional in a large fraction of relevant cases,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion.

The decision pitted the court’s conservatives against its liberals, with President Bush’s two appointees, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, siding with the majority.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia also were in the majority.

It was the first time the court banned a specific procedure in a case over how—not whether—to perform an abortion.

Abortion rights groups have said the procedure sometimes is the safest for a woman. They also said that such a ruling could threaten most abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy, although government lawyers and others who favor the ban said there are alternate, more widely used procedures that remain legal.

The prediction is that the outcome of this Supreme Court decision “is likely to spur efforts at the state level to place more restrictions on abortions.”

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in dissent, “Today’s decision is alarming.”

She said the ruling “refuses to take … seriously” previous Supreme Court decisions on abortion.

Ginsburg said the latest decision “tolerates, indeed applauds, federal intervention to ban nationwide a procedure found necessary and proper in certain cases by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.”

She was joined by Justices Stephen Breyer, David Souter and John Paul Stevens.

Ginsberg is right. The decision is alarming and it’s a giant step backwards for women’s rights.

Memeorandum has all the buzz in blogosphere.

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