Quick, someone call the Princeton Review!

Didn’t you always hate it when uppity teachers would issue a test on the first day of school to gauge students’ abilities and potential? Well, Justice Alito’s first day of school will carry a slight amount of pressure; after all, activists on both sides of a contentious issue will use today as a predictor for the Supreme Court’s short-term future.

It seems that the Court will hear a challenge to a federal law outlawing a late-term abortion procedure:

The law, the Partial Birth Abortion Act, was passed in 2003 but was immediately challenged in court and has never taken effect. It was ruled unconstitutional by three federal appeals courts in the last year, in rulings based on a Supreme Court decision in 2000 striking down a similar law passed in Nebraska.

In that case, Stenberg v. Carhart, a 5-to-4 majority that included the now-retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor found that any abortion ban must include an exception for the health of the mother.

The case accepted by the court today…is certain to rekindle questions of whether the court in the post-O'Connor era will be more sympathetic to efforts to limit abortion rights.

Basically, the Partial Birth Abortion Act would not infringe upon Roe v. Wade – that’s a bigger battle for a later date. But if the Court reverses its precedent and upholds the law, it could start a slippery slope of anti-abortion legislation.

Yet the issue today is not about being Pro-Choice or Pro-Life, it’s about a woman’s safety. The PBAA would have easily passed if it included a provision allowing doctors to perform a partial birth abortion when a woman’s health is in danger. By refusing to consider this distinction, conservative lobbyists have shown their true colors – preservation of life is not nearly as important as they would pretend. When an unborn fetus’ life is valued above a woman’s, even those on the fence about the ethics of abortion can’t help but be outraged (and I won’t even go into the disgusting “name game” politics involved. Who would be in favor of something called partial birth abortion? Who is in favor of ANY abortion? People are in favor of choice and of having the option to have a late-term abortion if medically necessary. Why not call conservative groups “Anti-Choice”? Isn’t that the same thing?)

(OK, I guess I will go into name game politics…sorry).

No, the issue today is not about Pro-Choice or Pro-Life; the issue is about the future of a judicial branch poised to disregard law, science and common sense in the interest of religiously-guided (or misguided) beliefs. Sam Alito, it’s you’re first day of school – please don’t flunk this test. They’re only going to get harder…