The US Supreme Court's Turnabout on Abortion

Yesterday, by a 5-to-4 vote, the US Supreme Court's new majority ruled for the first time that a specific abortion procedure may be banned by federal law. All leading Republican candidates for President support the decision; all the leading Democrats are opposed. Intact dilation and extraction is a late-term procedure dubbed "partial-birth abortion" by abortion opponents. Cynthia Gorney, professor of journalism at the University of California at Berkeley, is author of Articles of Faith, on the history and politics of the right to abortion.