once again a president of the united states has the historic opportunity to appoint a justice to the u.s. supreme court. this is an important choice because the supreme court can make rulings affecting all of us. we shall see which partisans are right with their views on bush’s pick.

the main issue on each group’s mind is abortion, specificially roe v. wade, which legalized abortion in the first place. the potential to change this decision motivates each group. i would like to see roe v. wade overturned. life has value and abortion cheapens that value. unfortunately, i don’t believe it will be overturned, regardless of how many supreme court justices bush appoints. there are too many obstacles to overcome to completely outlaw abortion.

what we can do is take small steps, such as parental notification, to help teens think twice about making this decision. we need to encourage parents to get involved in their kids’ lives. having a parent around to give advice on situations their daughters/sons face is key to heading off future problems. yes, even in the best of circumstances, kids screw up. but having an involved parent could short-circuit disaster in many cases.

it’s wrong to kill babies. it’s also wrong to bomb clinics or take the law into your hands to kill abortionists. bombing clinics and killing abortionists in cold blood is not acceptable in a civilized society. civilized societies have laws. the way to affect change is to make the case for a change in those laws.

here’s the question though — if abortion becomes illegal, how will that be enforced? punish the clinics without a doubt. but how about the young women who get these abortions? what would you do with them? it doesn’t seem like throwing them in jail would be the right thing to do. we need to think through the implications of overturning roe v. wade before trying to do it.

Technorati : SCOTUS, abortion, roe v. wade