Newsweek Jokes: Put Anti-'Rights of Women' Palin on Supreme Court

Sarah Palin, opposed to the rights of women? Newsweek legal columnist Dahlia Lithwick employed a jokey premise for her column in the magazine: "Put Palin on the Supreme Court." She doesn't really mean it, since she thinks Palin would curtail women's rights and other rights:

Since the Supreme Court has often been the lone defender of the rights of women, gay couples and atheists, installing a Sarah Palin there would do far more to undo these things than getting her into the White House.

Once again, feminists have reduced "the rights of women" to the mere right to terminate inconvenient truths in the womb. 

Lithwick suggested Palin was so hostile to abortion, she was somehow hostile to constitutional checks and balances in pushing the legislature to overturn a court decision. (Does Lithwick believe in an imperial judiciary?) But Lithwick wouldn’t tell the reader what "controversial abortion restriction" Palin was supporting:

Palin is well aware of the awesome power of the courts. That's why, when the Alaska Supreme Court struck down a controversial abortion restriction last year by a 3-2 margin, she excoriated them for "legislating from the bench," named a new justice to the court and pushed for the passage of an even harsher version of the same law, explicitly intended – said its sponsor – "to overturn [the Alaska Supreme Court]." Governor Palin understands the fundamental tediousness of constitutional checks and balances. She knows that if a court gets it wrong, you just build a better court.

You’d have to find another Newsweek article to learn that "Last November, the Alaska Supreme Court rejected a 1997 law requiring girls younger than 16 to obtain parental consent before getting an abortion. Palin slammed the ruling as ‘outrageous’ and had her attorney general file for a rehearing, but it was promptly denied."

There’s a reason why Lithwick might have tried to avoid telling the whole truth. A strong majority of Americans support parental consent before a teenage girl gets an abortion, and that means it is Lithwick’s abortion-on-demand view that is controversial. So says Gallup:

According to a November 2005 Gallup Poll, 69% of Americans favor laws requiring women under 18 to obtain parental consent for any abortion; only 28% are opposed to this. Support has hovered around the 70% mark since opinion on the issue was first measured by Gallup in 1992.