Capitol Ideas / Strange New Respect, 1992

...70 percent of Planned Parenthood clinics are in black and Hispanic neighborhoods...

...n the Dred Scott case, Chief Justice Taney found that, constitutionally, Congress had no power to prohibit slavery in the Territories, because such a prohibition would constitute a "taking" of private property...

...Everyone at the ceremony was delighted and even surprised that Republican Presidents had managed—from the point of view of their supporters—to choose so poorly...

...Kennedy, Souter, and O'Connor did not disappoint...

...Souter's role as a hospital overseer for many years "makes problematic the propriety of his ruling on a question that could reflect, so keenly on his own past...

...Here's an angle on racism that journalists don't want to dig into...

...Similarly, Dartmouth Hitchcock Hospital, which is associated with the Dartmouth Medical School, has performed abortions up to the end of the second trimester...

...The taboo is faithfully observed by conservatives...

...Since Souter can count on accolades and media glory if he continues to grow as a Justice, he can no doubt be expected to rule soundly in the future...

...in print and blacks might become more suspicious of the abortion-promoting liberals they have faithfully followed for years...

...Hmmmmm...

...Disdaining the evasive rhetoric of "choice," he came right out and applauded the sociological outcome of abortion on demand...

...At least 400,000 black pregnancies are aborted each year...

...He oddly boasted that the ruling showed he had told the truth when he claimed there had been "no litmus test" for Souter...

...Now he has "surprised friend and foe alike...

...I'm sorry he couldn't make it for the Strange New Respect award...

...He might more logically have taken credit for appointing Clarence Thomas, who did not betray those who supported his nomination...

...It might be a little uncomfortable for their choice-promoting feminist friends to see who their real bedfellows are...

...Harken unto abortionist Edward Allred, quoted in the San Diego Union as saying: "When a sullen black woman of 17 or 18 can decide to have a baby and get welfare and food stamps and become a burden to us all, it's time to stop...

...I was fortunate enough to attend, the ground rules specifying that no one present, other than Kennedy himself, could be identified...

...Slaves, like the unborn, were not considered to be "fully human," but were to be regarded as the property of their owners (mothers...

...There was also some quiet grumbling amid the backslapping, on account of the inept admission by the center-holding trio that they weren't entirely sure that Roe had been properly decided in the first place...

...Acouple of days after its Souterhas-grown story, the New York Times attacked Justice Thomas for not following Souter's "pattern of growth...

...Nick is a sociable old cove and I think he would have been delighted to pin the Taney Medal on Kennedy's chest...

...They had shown, rather too conspicuously, that they were responding to the very public pressure they had decried...

...That is the way the Washington establishment likes and expects Republicans to behave...

...Justice O'Connor, it's widely conceded, already grew years ago...

...Taney had shown "sensitivity" by manumitting his personal slaves before coming to the Court...

...People who "grow" must be quite above suspicion before they can win Washington's glittering prizes, and we can only assume that Butterfield didn't know about the Concord Hospital, for he said nothing about it...

...In its recent case, Planned ParentTom Bethell is The American Spectator's Washington correspondent and a media fellow at the Hoover Institution...

...black women are more than twice as likely to get abortions as white women...

...They are the real conservatives," I heard it said a dozen times as I strolled about the R Street garden...

...today...

...hood v. Casey, the Court reaffirmed Roe, with three of the five justices appointed by Reagan and Bush (O'Connor and Souter, in addition to Kennedy) joining Blackmun and Stevens...

...It was as though a member of Taney's court had voted against Dred Scott while being a trustee of a market where slaves also happened to be sold...

...Liberals are big supporters of population control in the Third World, after all, not to mention subsidized abortions here...

...Taney was praised by some newspapers ("The decision in the Dred Scott case must be a finality, so far as federal legislation is concerned," the Richmond Enquirer editorialized), reviled by others, and as for himself, serenely confident "that this act of my judicial life will stand the test of time and the sober judgment of the country...

...He had stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Kennedy in the abortion and prayer cases...

...There is, no doubt, considerable right-wing support for abortion today, but its basis is carefully left unstated—at leastin print...

...In withholding judgment on the correctness of Roe and then meekly upholding it, the centerholders, it was felt, had unnecessarily given the game away...

...This doughty gentleman of color has become the hero of the day, if not of the age," the St...

...But the committee is still enthusiastic about Souter and sees him as one of the most promising Republicans in years, outside of Kennedy himself...

...Kennedy, of course, went to the Supreme Court with strong support among conservatives and pro-lifers, and a general expectation that he would not let them down...

...A little more of Allred & Co...

...At the ceremony, the written opin ion of Souter, Kennedy, and O'Connor was praised as "a magnificent example of Republican jurisprudence...

...Radical precedent was upheld (and Roe indeed was radical) with suitable obeisance to stare decisis...

...Is it possible that word of this somehow got out to Justice Thomas even though the news is not fit to print...

...The award ceremony, attended by prominent journalists, was held in the Georgetown garden of a retired Washington publisher...

...To those who may not have heard, the Strange New Respect Award is given to political figures who betray their conservative supporters after moving to Washington...

...He seemed to think his own truthfulness was at stake, rather than the Court's integrity...

...Because of this cloud, it was regretfully decided to deny Souter an award this year...

...Barnum's Hotel in St...

...t was widely expected at the ceremo- ny that Justice Souter would also win Strange New Respect...

...Souter's tenure as a decision-maker of these two institutions, many hundreds of abortions were performed under his authority, with no indication that he ever objected to or protested the performance of these abortions...

...Kennedy was feted for his "growth," and reporters present were smiling broadly at rumors (thought to emanate from Kennedy's law clerks) that the Justice has become very attentive to his newsclips...

...The medal is named after Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, who presided over an 1857 ruling of the court, Dred Scott v. Sandford, which oddly prefigures Roe v. Wade (1973...

...D on't expect the New York Times to play up minority abortions any time soon, then...

...He came to the Court with a personal interest in the legitimacy of Roe...

...During Souter's confirmation hearings in September 1990, Howard Phillips of the Conservative Caucus testified that in February 1973, when Souter was a member of the board of trustees of Concord Hospital, "he participated in a unanimous decision that abortion be performed at that hospital...

...Taney, like Kennedy, was a Catholic and a decent fellow who was "personally opposed" to slavery and "personally kind to Negroes," according to one of his biographers...

...A right-winger I know is particularly in favor of subsidized abortions...

...Although he avoided any mention of blacks, he did say that the people who are aborted are just the kind who would be confronting us with Uzis later in life if they were not...

...Such people are usually said to have "grown...

...Kennedy was also honored with the prestigious Taney Medal, which from time to time is awarded to justices who uphold the neglected constitutional doctrine that "the legislative will must remain subordinate to the judicial power of the Supreme Court...

...But it's worth noting that the published expression of right-wing (as opposed to merely conservative) opinion is taboo in the U.S...

...But there was a last-minute decision to withhold it from the reclusive Justice, because of an apparent and little-noted conflict of interest in the abortion case...

...A breakthrough, if I'm not mistaken...

...Recently, however, the maverick Nicholas Von Hoffman wrote a bold column, published in the Philadelphia Inquirer, applauding the Court's ruling...

...The most recent recipient was Justice Harry Blackmun...

...The award was actually presented by a well-known liberal columnist with a northeastern newspaper, who has become a tremendous Kennedy admirer...

...Both cases used constitutional rhetoric to preempt legislative action...

...for every three black babies born, two are aborted...

...He has also hired a law clerk trained by Laurence Tribe, Harvard's best-known progressive thinker...

...Bush's inopportune self-vindication told the Washington establishment what it did not expect to hear from him, that he is really not too concerned about the way the Court rules on abortion...

...I also heard expressions of surprise at George Bush's response...

...Three days after the Casey decision was announced, Fox Butterfield wrote a Souter Has Grown story for the New York Times, a good specimen of the genre, and in writing it Butterfield in effect nominated Souter for the award...

...Could he even rule impartially on it, when to reverse that decision might imply something awful about his own willing part in promoting abortion in private life...

...71 20 The American Spectator September 1992...

...Louis Washington Union reported in 1857...

...Dred Scott was a slave, but at least he emerged from his encounter with the Supreme Court in one piece...

...But he would not allow his personal beliefs to interfere with his judicial duties as he saw them...

...His "courage" was much praised, but there was a certain amount of grumbling at Robert Bork's contrary view that the Casey ruling was "intensely popular with just about everybody Justices care about: the New York Times, the Washington Post, the three network news programs, law school faculties, and at least 90 percent of the people Justices may meet at Washington dinner parties...

...Footnotes and tiny demurrals sufficed to avoid the appearance of mere slavishness...

...In Roe, Blackmun found that, constitutionally, state legislatures had no power to prohibit abortion in the states, because such a prohibition would interfere with the "right to privacy...

...An increasing percentage of women seeking abortions are black...

...As Michael K. Flaherty pointed out in last month's issue, Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger wrote that "we do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members...

...During 18 The American Spectator September 1992 the period of Mr...

...If books like The Rising Tide of Color, written by Lothrop Stoddard (Ph.D., Harvard) were still published by respectable houses (Scribner's), those who support abortion on ostensibly liberal grounds might also come under suspicion of liking its demographic outcome...

...As Phillips said, he joined the court as "an accomplice to abortion," giving him a personal stake in the issue...

...In parts of South Los Angeles, having babies for welfare is the only industry the people have...

...Liberals, by contrast, relish the added leverage provided by those on their own side but further to the left, and they are delighted not to have to contend with the full spectrum of opposition from the right...

...Louis supported him as a public attraction, "and while life lasted he enjoyed himself hugely," according to another Taney biographer...

...Souter had gone much further than merely claiming abortion should be legal...

...Here we come to an unreported aspect of the story...

...Under the circumstances," the columnist Joseph Sobran has written for Human Life Review, "is it likely that [Souter] would have voted to overturn Roe...