According to Greenburg, an
ABC news correspondent and University of Chicago Law grad,
-- there's no mistaking that Obama says he no longer will support what's long been a cornerstone of the abortion rights debate: The Court's insistence that laws banning abortions after the fetus is viable... contain an exception to allow doctors to perform them if necessary to protect a pregnant woman's mental health.
Obama told
Relevant Magazine:
"I don't think that 'mental distress' qualifies as the health of the mother... I think it has to be a serious physical issue that arises in pregnancy..."
This dismissal by Obama of the exception to late-term abortion bans on grounds of "mental distress" minimizes concerns expressed by the Supreme Court for the mother's emotional health and, as Greenburg points out, echoes current arguments of anti-abortion rights groups claiming that the "mental health" exception does little more than create a basis on which late-term abortions become readily available.
Greenburg reminds us that the exception required by the Supreme Court in 1973 were designed to protect the '"well-being"' of the mother; and whether her well-being requires a late term abortion is to be determined by
'"Medical judgment, ...exercised in the light of all factors--physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman's age--..."'
As Greenburg also points out, even the Supreme Court's 2007 decisions (Gonzales v. Carhart and v. Planned Parenthood) banning the partial birth abortion procedure when the fetus is viable fall short of specifically extending the ban to those situations in which it can be demonstrated that abortion is required for the mother's mental or physical health. Greenburg tells us:
"Only Thomas and Scalia have expressly supported the position that a mental health exception is not necessary."
The position voiced by Obama just days ago to
Relevant not only echoes their conservative views on abortion, but also represents a departure from his prior stance -- to wit, his support of the Freedom of Choice Act. While some may view Obama's change in position on abortion as merely one of many on a growing list of recent flip-flops, others may worry that his new view of abortion could be the last straw for voters who had decided to support Obama to protect the precarious balance on the Supreme Court.
