Rights and Wrongs

So, the Supreme Court does the right thing and bars the death penalty for juveniles. Quoth my sister, the Human Rights Lawyer, "maybe now we can actually ratify the Convention on the Rights of a Child instead of being the only country other than Somalia to have failed to do so." This is a good thing indeed, but every silver lining has a cloud - and there's a big scary cumulonimbus one in this case: namely, the dissenting opinion. As Bitch, Ph.D. eloquently notes, the anti-choice agenda is all over it.

Scalia mentions abortion three times in the dissent. First, the argument seems to be that if juveniles can decide to have sex, then they're old enough to be killed by the state:

We need not look far to find studies contradicting the Court's conclusions. As petitioner points out, the American Psychological Association (APA), which claims in this case that scientific evidence shows persons under 18 lack the ability to take moral responsibility for their decisions, has previously taken precisely the opposite position before this very Court. In its brief in Hodgson v. Minnesota, 497 U. S. 417 (1990), the APA found a "rich body of research" showing that juveniles are mature enough to decide whether to obtain an abortion without parental involvement.

The second (related) argument is that deciding to have an abortion is more "complex" than deciding to kill someone:

In other contexts where individualized consideration is provided, we have recognized that at least some minors will be mature enough to make difficult decisions that involve moral considerations. For instance, we have struck down abortion statutes that do not allow minors deemed mature by courts to bypass parental notification provisions. ... It is hard to see why this context should be any different. Whether to obtain an abortion is surely a much more complex decision for a young person than whether to kill an innocent person in cold blood.

Finally, the argument is that ... um ... since we have more liberal abortion laws than other countries, we shouldn't care if our death penalty laws are more conservative. Yeah, pretty sure that's what he's saying:

And let us not forget the Court's abortion jurisprudence, which makes us one of only six countries that allow abortion on demand until the point of viability. ... Though the Government and amici in cases following Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113 (1973), urged the Court to follow the international community's lead, these arguments fell on deaf ears.

This is how it starts, kids. This is how they dismantle Roe v. Wade, sneaky bit by sneaky bit. Go read what Prof. B. has to say, and check out Riggsveda for some perspective on the days before legal abortion. You can read the decision and the dissenting opinion here.