Gonzales v. Carhart

In a post yesterday, Rick noted the narrowness of the Court's PBA holding.  And, I agree with him that it was a narrow holding.  Time will tell, but I think that despite its narrowness this decision can be hailed (or lamented) as a huge step toward undoing Roe.  What is the evidence for this?  First, Casey itself sets up the potential seeds for its own destruction in its funky stare decisis analysis.  Has time - and the facts - overtaken the holding in Roe?  At some point, Kennedy may conclude that a new understanding of fetal life, the destruciton of life, and the state's interest in protecting innocent life have overtaken the assumption that lead to the Roe decision.  In his majority opinion yesterday, he describes in gruesome detail the D & E and intact D & E abortion procedures.  If the state can prohibit an abortion doctor from partially delivering a baby, puncturing her skull, and vacuuming out her brains, why can't the state prohibit an abortion doctor from ripping the live child apart limb by limb as happens in D & E abortions?  Second, describing the abortions in such detail with a human touch unlike Breyer's cold clinical approach, further undermines the abortion regime.  Third, the opinion refers to the bond of love between mother and child, the act of abortion as "killing," and the fetus as a living organism.  Fourth, I think Ginsburg is right, the Court's opinion "refuses to take Casey and Stenberg seriously.  It tolerates, indeed applauds federal intervention to ban nationwide... It blurs the line, firmly drawn in Casey, between previoability and postviability abortions.  And, for the first time since Roe, the Court blesses a prohibition with no exception safeguarding a woman's health." 

Roe and Casey are still in place, but I suspect these precedents are seriously wounded.  Time will tell whether the wounds are fatal.  I can't read tea leaves (or the minds of Kennedy, Alito, and Roberts), but Gonzales v. Carhart certainly provides the tools for them to either overturn Roe or back away from it to the point where it is irrelevant.