Inspired by The Heretik, who noted privatly "the burn in Blogylvania" is bringing on oy-ish feelings, I begin a personal meme: The Thursday Burn - Oy!. This idea may need some refinement, so if anyone takes this on, feel free to sample it, hack it, sweeten it, make it yours. But for now it's just a flat out expression of what's burning you this week in the blogozoid, with the "oy!" factor.

What really burns me this week is how all the shit is coming down about Roe, and nobody seems to notice. Sure, there's a lot of sensible concern on Booman, but not in the mainstream media, and not from many of the SCLB.

Perhaps most disappointing was the commentary this week from Hendrik Hertzberg writing in The New Yorker:

Many of the Democrats’ “powerful special interest allies,� notably in the abortion-rights movement, are raising alarms about Roe v. Wade. The core of the abortion ruling is not in immediate danger; even if O’Connor’s support becomes Roberts’s opposition, Roe will still command a majority of one. The truth, though, is that the next few years will be hard ones for reproductive freedom, especially among the red-state poor and young. Roe or no Roe, Roberts or no Roberts, a woman with money will be able to get a safe and legal abortion, even if she has to travel to another state to get one. But any Bush-appointed Justice, whatever his or her stand on Roe, is likely to endorse ever more restrictive state laws calculated to intimidate, inconvenience, or otherwise prevent young women who want or need abortions from getting them. If, after another couple of Bush appointments, the Court does strike down Roe, the result would, of course, be worse—abortion would be banned outright in a score of states—but the political energy in this seemingly endless national struggle would quickly pass from the pro-life to the pro-choice side. The more immediate dangers, from the moderate-to-liberal point of view, are in areas where O’Connor provided the fifth vote. If Roberts turns out to be as conservative as Bush’s rightmost supporters hope, then affirmative action, secularism, patients’ rights, and all manner of federal regulation from campaign-finance controls to environmental protection will be in serious trouble.

"More immediate dangers," Hendrik?! Oy vey!

In OurWord.org, Pseudo-Adrienne reports:

For seven years, the National Organization for Women has had a court-ordered injunction that protected patients and staff of women's clinics from anti-choice protestor violence--because I suppose violence, assault, hurling hateful slurs, bombings, shootings, stalking, threats, and vandalism are all apart of the misogynist "pro-life" dogma. This injunction was known as NOW v. Scheidler, and recently the Supreme Court agreed to review the case. And what is at stake is the safety and even the very lives of those who enter, exit, and work at women's clinics all across the country.

This seems to be getting pretty "immediate" to me. Oy vey, Hendrik! What are you thinking?!

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