Achtung! Der Himmel fällt!

...auch, die Nazin kommen!...von South Dakota.
Three items of note today (ordered from least to most alarming), along with a general status update.

First: Vicky Lynn Marshall (aka Anna Nicole Smith) set foot in the Supreme Court this morning. I'm sorry but that's almost as bad as pouring pigs' blood on the Western Wall. Not quite as bad, but almost; certainly much worse than the former spokesperson of the Taliban taking classes at Yale. (A warm welcome to you, sir, from our gender-neutral society. Just for the record, I wanted to bomb your women-hating fundamentalist-desert-cult before 11/9. Good to hear you didn't mean all those awful things you said last time you came to this fine country. Now that the unpleasantness is over, I hope that you might come to visit Stanford some time.)

Second: Apparently, the following is true -- Picketing an abortion clinic | to dissuade citizens from peacefully obtaining, rendering or discussing lawful medical services | and conspiring to harass or embarrass those citizens with the overall goal of preventing people from practicing their chosen profession or obtaining medical treatment | does not constitute extortion or racketeering. Don't get me wrong, Justice Breyer is my favorite for reasons too many to enumerate here and I agree with him that the Hobbs Act was not passed to punish discrete acts or threats of violence unaccompanied by extortive demands. However, I strongly disagree with Justice Breyer's view of the facts in Scheidler v. National Organization for Women. (For those of you fortunate, or indebted, enough to have an account, the Westlaw citation is 2006 WL 461512.) In reiterating the Court's position that protestors may be threatening or violent yet not extortive Justice Breyer says:

We pointed out that the claimed "property" consisted of "a woman's right to seek medical services from a clinic, the right of the doctors, nurses or other clinic staff to perform their jobs, and the right of the clinics to provide medical services free from wrongful threats, violence, coercion and fear.” (internal quotation marks omitted). We decided that "[w]hatever the outer boundaries may be, the effort to characterize petitioners' actions here as an 'obtaining of property from' respondents is well beyond them.” Accordingly, we held that "because they did not 'obtain' property from respondents," petitioners "did not commit extortion" as defined by the Hobbs Act. (citations omitted)

What part of the anti-abortion movement does the esteemed jurist fail to understand? It seems to me that the vociferous elements of this decidedly authoritarian ilk are set upon increasing the pain and publicity of what is by all accounts a highly personal and already painful decision. To accomplish this goal, the rabble presents medical care providers with the option of providing abortions or putting up with some of the loudest, most unattractive and ignorant guests for hours on end. If that weren't bad enough, some of them are even violent. I imagine that if these loud, ugly people fail to close down the clinic, the next move is to show up with a more muscular "redneck" or "meathead" - or, in the alternative, a bomb threat. Now, suppose I came to your place of business, announced myself to be a member of a "movement" known worldwide for blowing stuff up and started screaming for you to close up shop. You might reasonably conclude that you were being not-so-tacitly presented with a very unpalatable option which I leave the gentle reader to divine. Let's see how well you enjoy your right to make a living knowing you'll see me and my loud friends every time you go to work. Oh yeah, I'm not talking about women's rights here because I think OB/GYNs are some brave mofos and prosecutions under RICO or the Hobbs Act are so butter. Now, why would I suggest a pecuniary or commercial interest in the right to an abortion? Protesters who close down reproductive health clinics drive business to regular hospitals, delivery rooms and anesthesiologists. Also, I just spent an hour listening to pro-choice fellow explain how Planned Parenthood makes scads of money providing abortions because the pro-lifers chased away half the doctors and Papists bought up half the hospitals. I believe him...I just don't see anything wrong with it.
(Before I'm accused of being anti-Catholic, let me point out that Roman Catholicism is my third favorite religion - right behind the Cults of Minerva and Miuccia Prada which are also sorta "Roman" and have, to date, served me quite well.)

Third: South Dakota seems poised to ban abortion (except to save the life of the mother). There is no exception for rape or incest. Hmmm... If we ban abortion in South Dakota and every pregnancy produces a child, what result for the incest rate in South Dakota?


Addendum re status:
The other night [N] told me I did very little work for a law student, or that I was very laid-back for a law student...something to that effect. Anyhow, I was already scared that I wasn't paying enough attention this semester so did that observation ever put me into a panic! (Hey, even [N] is sorta lazy.) So, in celebration of several weeks of debauchery, I decided to actually get some things done and pull a couple of more traditional all-nighters. Once again, this boy comes through in the clutch. We will be posting with more regularity.