What is up with that? OK, liberals, make yourself useful and explain why your guy would want to overturn a ban that he voted for 7 times? And if he doesn't like the ruling, why doesn't he just move to repeal the law? He isn't without power and he could at least make an attempt at it. The NY Sun makes the same point:
What a confederacy of wimps. The leaders of the party in control of the Congress are complaining that the Supreme Court has ruled they have the power to make the abortion laws. It's mind-boggling. Instead of relying on a Republican Supreme Court to uphold abortion rights, the Democrats in Congress could just repeal the partial-birth abortion ban, which was passed when the Republicans controlled both houses of Congress. Or if they don't want to repeal the entire law, they could just insert a provision allowing the procedure when it is necessary to safeguard the health of a pregnant woman; they could even define when it is medically necessary, which is a point of contention.So, I wonder if Reid plans to run for re-election. It would seem to me that he just blew his chance of running as a pro-life Democrat again.
But no, they don't want to. They don't dare to. The problem the Democrats face is that the procedure at hand is so brutal and so morally problematic for so many that when the partial-birth abortion ban came before Congress for votes back in 2003, many Democrats voted for the ban, and against the procedure. They included some of the party's senior figures, among them Senators Daschle, Byrd, Leahy, and Reid. The 2003 vote was at least the fifth the Senate had taken on the procedure, and the fifth time the ban won a simple majority. And now the Supreme Court has had the audacity to support the Congress's authority.
Earlier votes included other prominent Democrats who voted for the ban. In a May 20, 1997, vote, Senators Biden and Moynihan sided with Senators Leahy, Daschle, Byrd, and Reid in opposing the procedure. Senators Biden, Leahy, Reid, and Moynihan voted on September 26, 1996, to override President Clinton's veto of the ban. Moynihan and Messrs. Reid and Biden had voted for the ban on December 7, 1995. A vote that same day on an amendment by Senator Boxer put that California Democrat as well as such well-known left-wingers as Senators Kennedy, Kerry, and Feingold on record as favoring a ban of the procedure so long as an exception was made for when it was medically necessary to preserve the health or fertility of the mother. Senators Moynihan, Biden, Byrd, Leahy, and Reid voted for the ban again on October 21, 1999.
Reid wants the Supreme Court to overturn a ban he voted for 7 times
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