It's "paternalistic" for the U.S. Supreme Court to tell a D.C. woman she can't have a partial-birth abortion. But it would be "perverse ideological purity" for the high court to strike down the city's handgun ban that leaves her defenseless in her own home against burglars or abusive ex-boyfriends. That's the logic flowing from that great fount of legal wisdom, the Washington Post editorial board.
It's not often we criticize newspaper editorials, after all, bias occurs in slanted reporting. One expects opinion in editorials. But I thought it worth pointing out to NewsBusters readers the hypocrisy of the Post vehemently opposing Second Amendment rights but screaming bloody murder when the Supreme Court dared to uphold one federal law outlawing a particularly brutal form of abortion.
In an April 19, 2007 editorial slamming the Court for upholding a federal partial-birth abortion ban, the Post's editorial board lambasted (emphasis mine) "the majority's paternalistic pretense that the law can be justified by Congress's interest 'in protecting the integrity and ethics of the medical profession' and in protecting pregnant women from making a choice they may come to regret."
Yet the Post showed no concern for the District of Columbia's paternalistic handgun ban and its violence to the plain meaning of the Second Amendment. Indeed, in a March 17 editorial, the Washington Post called on the U.S. Supreme Court to rule in Tuesday's District of Columbia v. Heller case in such a way that maximizes government's power to regulate the right to keep and bear arms (emphasis mine):
If the justices affirm the individual rights approach, the government then must shoulder the burden of proving that any restriction on that right is justified. Some gun rights advocates argue that the government's burden should be substantial. We strongly disagree.
The Second Amendment, while ensconced in the Bill of Rights among provisions protecting freedom of speech and freedom from unreasonable searches, is different. Words can be offensive; bullets can be lethal. Every right, no matter how precious, is subject to some limits. If the justices recognize an individual right, they can and should allow lawmakers maximum flexibility to enact reasonable regulation. In our view, that flexibility should include the District's law, which is aimed at taking the most dangerous guns off the streets of what was once one of the nation's most dangerous cities. Anything short of this would promote perverse ideological purity over the legitimate interests of lawmakers to protect public safety.
—Ken Shepherd is Managing Editor of NewsBusters
Editor at Large
Comments Policy
One thing the WaPo forgets.
March 17, 2008 - 14:53 ET by mbuelMost liberals forget the important connection between the first and second ammendment. It's great that we have the first ammendment detailing our rights to speak against government, and to practice our religion freely (unless you're in a public building (another hypocrisy)) means NOTHING without the second ammendment. That's why the founding fathers put it in there. If we the people don't have a way to PROTECT our freedoms and liberty all the other ammendments are pointless.
I'll agree, to a point
March 17, 2008 - 21:44 ET by pbthinkerI'll agree with what you said, to a point. We've allowed our first amendment rights to be eroded by politicians and liberals. McCain, and campaign finance control, the pc movement, all of which have attacked our right of free speech. If we let our 2nd amendment right go too, you can forget about any first amendment we have left, the liberals will be determining what we can say and when we can say it.
Democrats: Stuck on Stupid since 2000.
I'll agree completely
March 18, 2008 - 12:27 ET by mbuelYou are absolutely right. This is a great time to bring up a quote by Richard Weaver:
"The past shows unvaryingly that when a people’s freedom
disappears, it goes not with a bang, but in silence amid the
comfort of being cared for. That is the dire peril in the
present trend toward statism. If freedom is not found
accompanied by a willingness to resist, and to reject
favors, rather than to give up what is intangible but
precarious, it will not long be found at all."
People have become comfortable getting cared for by the nanny state, and if they have to give up more liberty to get "better care" (in their eyes) that's okay with them. How else can you explain the 45 - 53% flux of Americans that approve of greater social welfare vis a vie the democrats?
Nothing new
March 17, 2008 - 15:08 ET by motherbeltNothing new here.
12-year-old girls are adult enough to have sex and kill their unborn babies without telling their parents, but full-grown adults can't be trusted with a firearm.
Every right, no matter how precious, is subject to some limits.
Really? And what "limits" are these people willing to accept on abortion?
Abotion is not a right and appears nowhere in the constitution.
March 17, 2008 - 15:14 ET by JohnCThey claim it's a "privacy" issue and therefore falls under the Fourth Am't. Perhaps, but it's still not enumerated therefore, is subbordinate to those which are. The Second is.
That's true, but the point
March 17, 2008 - 15:19 ET by motherbeltThat's true, but the point is, they still won't accept any regulation at all, because they see every little thing as an infringement of what they see as an "unfettered right."
Just making a point about their hypocrisy.
WaPo as always, talking out
March 17, 2008 - 15:52 ET by kgWaPo as always, talking out of both sides of their mouth.
"Forget change, I want improvement!"
the second amendment
March 17, 2008 - 16:13 ET by RousseIt is utterly inconceivable that the Supreme Court will rule "against" the second amendment. But if it does, then the next election really will be the most important one since the Continental Congress voted to make George Washington commander of the Army.
I hate to bring this up because I know folks get so darn tired of hearing what Texans think, but honestly ... does anyone think Texans will give up their guns? Santa Anna tore up the constitution of 1824 and tried to take Mexican citizens' guns, and it went to hell after that. Do Gonzales, the Alamo and Goliad ring a bell? How about San Jacinto?
The so-called "right to an
March 17, 2008 - 16:43 ET by mattmThe so-called "right to an abortion" is nowhere to be found in the Constitution, yet the pro-aborts say it's implied, but the same leftists deny the right to keep and bear arms although it is expressly enumerated.
If the Left were consitstent in their interpretation of the Constitution, they would either insist on giving every citizen a gun and ammo, or would insist on banning all abortions...
I guess the obvious is lost
March 17, 2008 - 16:49 ET by motherbeltI guess the obvious is lost on them, but what's in those "penumbras" (penumbras are little shadowy things discovered by Justice William O. Douglas when he came out of a 3-D movie and forgot to take off the special glasses) just jumps right out!
The Partial Birth Abortion Procedure
March 17, 2008 - 16:59 ET by lotrhttp://www.priestsforlife.org/partialbirth.html#showit
Somebody please tell me what outlawing this barbaric procedure has to do with paternalism?
lotr.... Absolutely
March 17, 2008 - 17:06 ET by bigtimerlotr....
Absolutely ZERO!
These people are beyond contempt to even try to use as a comparison.
I get too angry and filled with disgust at people who are pro abortion let alone killing/murdering a fully formed baby.
I have listened to the likes of Boxer and others on the Senate floor, I want to go through the screen and throttle that woman, what is beyond pathetic is she claims she is a woman...it is beyond imagination that this ever would of been allowed in this country.
I just shake my head and pray.
Why the return of the cranioclast?
March 17, 2008 - 17:06 ET by GrannyGrump42Once upon a time,it was truly, sadly sometimes necessary to stop in the middle of a delivery and collapse the baby's head in order to save the mother's life. These were cases of obstructed labor, when the mother's pelvis (usually due to poor diet as a child) was too small to allow the baby's head to pass. A gruesome instrument, called the cranioclast, was used to crush the baby's skull. http://www.fcgapulto... But as nutrition improved, obstructed labor became rare. And as antibiotics and blood transfusions became available, c-sectrions replaced the "destructive operation". Doctors gladly relegated the cranioclast to the medical museum, where it remained. Until recently. Then, suddenly, we had to move backward overfifty years. In its new form -- that of a pair of blunt, curved Metzenbaum scissors and a suction canula -- the cranioclast was resurrected. http://www.nrlc.org/... Now, keep in mind, one of these "partial birth abortions" takes three days to perform. It takes that long to dilate the woman's cervix to extract the whole infant in one piece. What compelling medical reason could there possibly be to drive past any number of fully-equipped hospitals, where an emergency c-section could have the baby out of the womb and in the NICU within the hour, in order to spend three days on a procedure the medical community had abandoned as a barbaric relic over fifty years earlier? What kind of health emergency requires that instead of spending her time in a fully equipped hospital, attended by medical professionals, the woman should instead spend three days in a motel room, attended by whoever she happened to bring with her? The idea that there is any medical rationale whatsoever for this barbaric procedure would be laughable if the abortion lobby didn't have such highly placed political friends. They've brought back a horror from the days before antibiotics and blood transfusions, and treat it like medical progress.
GrannyG.... Right to the
March 17, 2008 - 17:13 ET by bigtimerGrannyG....
Right to the point...excellent.
None other than former
March 17, 2008 - 17:27 ET by motherbeltNone other than former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop said
in no way can I twist my mind to see that the late term abortion as described..you know, partial birth and then the destruction of the child before the head is born- is a medical necessity for the mother. I know it can't be a medical necessity for the baby... [and yes, he said "baby" not "fetus"]
And Dr. Martin Haskell, a specialist in the procedure, said in an interview with the AMA's own newspaper that
"you could dilate further" and deliver the baby alive, but "that's not really the point. The point here is you're attempting to do an abortion. And that's the goal of your work, is to complete an abortion. Not to see how do I manipulate the situation so that I get a live birth instead."
But what do they know?
Listen to the liberal feminists: It's like, you know, a women's reproductive, like, health issue.
I Are One of Those
March 17, 2008 - 22:52 ET by CGattonI find it interesting that you mention this procedure here, and must admit I never thought of partial birth abortion in this fashion.
I was born in 1949, and after my mother had been in labor for 72 hours, and I had been stuck in the birth canal for an extended period of time, the doctor gave my father a choice. He could have his wife or his child, but not both. His child would be mentally retarded (yup, could say that in 1949, lol) due to lack of oxygen if he went that route.
My dad told the doc he could always make another child but, he only would heve one wife, so the doctor was instructed to kill me in just the fashion you describe. Fortunately, the touch of those (we've always called them) tweezers was enough, and I decided to slide on out of there and visit the world. But for the grace of God, I would have been one of those very early partial birth abortions, albeit for a most acceptable reason.
My point is nothing more than a realization of how what has to this point been an at-a-distance revulsion of any abortion, to the brutal realization of exactly what the partial birth abortion costs us - a good portion of our humanity.
V/R
Clyde
"...the aspirants to tyranny are either the...men of the state, who in democracies are demagogues,... or those who hold great offices, and have a long tenure.." - Aristotle, Politics, c350BC
But what about pointed sticks?
March 17, 2008 - 17:44 ET by CobraMan"Words can be offensive; bullets can be lethal."
Words can be just as lethal as bullets. Hasn't this idiot ever heard of criminal solicitation? How about inciting a riot? People have died because of what someone has said. Don't believe me? Then I suggest you walk into any crowded building and scream "FIRE!" You'll be surprised at the result.
Why is it that so many people assume that a gun, or any other inanimate object, is lethal without the need for human action? A gun is only as lethal as the person who holds it. You can leave a loaded gun lying on your desk for centuries and it will just sit there without hurting anyone. It takes human interaction to turn it into a lethal weapon. The same is true for any tool, whether it be guns, hammers, or pointed sticks. It's the human that's dangerous, not the tool.