"Another Bush For Telling Women What to Do" -- were I able to slap a bumper sticker on the presidential limo today, that's what it would say. Not even two weeks after his brother John Ellis Bush hustled a monstrous, probably unconstitutional law through the Florida legislature dictating the terms of Terry Schiavo's life and death, President No-Choice signed a monstrous, probably unconstitutional federal law banning the dilation & extraction procedure after the first trimester of pregnancy. Welcome to the slippery slope.

Allow me to quote some of his inspirational rhetoric: "For years, a terrible form of violence has been directed against children who are inches from birth while the law looked the other way ... Today, at last, the American people and our government have confronted the violence and come to the defense of the innocent child." Putting aside cynical points about a tirade on "violence against children" coming from a man who slashed HeadStart, law enforcement, welfare, and education funding, let alone his sending teenagers to their bloody deaths every day in Iraq...let's simply parse his words. "Children who are inches from birth"? As sane people know, this rare procedure is used only when medically appropriate, to help women whose pregnancies are clearly not going to result in a safe delivery and healthy infant. "Defense of the innocent child"? There are no "children" in question here, and even if there were, who would say they were not innocent? What is the point of including inflammatory language like this -- clearly it's to reframe the reproductive rights debate by placing the unborn at the center, and the government in the position of "protecting" that key demographic from "harm." Ironically, the law signed today does not, I repeat, not include an exception for protecting the woman's health from "harm." Not only does this boggle the rational mind, it ushers in a host of unpleasant realities for women facing these tough decisions right now -- I'd like to see President Innocent have to explain to a pregnant woman scheduled for D&X, on national television, why he thinks she should be forced to continue carrying an acephalic or otherwise terminally compromised fetus. This high-flying song and dance about "protecting children" would sound pretty hollow, I think, to someone to whom Washington is dictating how they can treat their reproductive organs. Whatever happened to "smaller government"?

BUT WAIT -- even as I was writing this post, a retaliatory blow has been struck in Nebraska! A federal judge there granted a temporary restraining order against the new law! Way to go, Judge Kopf! The TRO applies only to the four physicians who filed suit, but may extend into several states, and this strategy will surely be replicated in other federal circuits. Tiny sigh of relief.