Supreme Court Upholds Late Abortion Ban: Right-wing Judicial Activism Run Amok

By Joshua Holland, AlterNet. Posted April 18, 2007.

Bush’s court-packing pays off, and Democrats who voted for Scalia and Roberts get their comeuppance.

Last year, in defending his decision to vote for the confirmation of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, Senator Bill Nelson (D-NE) said that it was based, in part, on Alito's "pledge that he would not bring a political agenda to the court."

Today, Nelson and the 18 other Democratic Senators who voted against the attempted filibuster of Alito reaped what they sowed. The new court -- the first in American history made up of a majority of conservative Catholics -- upheld the 2003 ban on so-called "partial birth" abortions, a made-up term that's become a hot-button issue for social conservatives, but is largely based on junk science and flies in the face of medical "best practices." It will go down as a text-book case of right-wing judicial activism, with the justices essentially overruling the medical community.