The Courts and Our Rights

A post by Dover Bitch at Hullabaloo hits a lot of things on the head but doesn't go far enough:

I hesitate to say that people who believe a woman has a right to control her own body have become complacent, but the fact of the matter is that the courts are no longer a reliable last line of defense for women's rights. The arena in which women's rights will be secured has shifted and become less concentrated, which means the burden of maintaining those rights will have to be shared by more Americans.

Furthermore, there is hardly a flatter lie than when a GOP candidate says these issues should be left to the states. Is there any doubt that the minute a woman no longer has a Constitutional, fundamental right to make these decisions, the pro-life movement will immediately attempt to have a federal ban? They've been trying to do that already, even with a woman's rights protected by Roe.

The courts have always been our last recourse in the area of individual rights. With the right-wing assault of the past decade or so, and Bush packing the federal bench with ideologues, that's no longer the case. It's not just women's rights, it's everyone's rights. That's one reason I don't want to see same-sex marriage cases in the federal courts right now -- it won't get a fair hearing.