Cara notes that there's good news in Missouri on the case of the woman in prison who state officials would force to carry a pregnancy to term, go through labor and give birth in ankle irons:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court under new Chief Justice John Roberts cleared the way on Monday for a pregnant Missouri prisoner to obtain an abortion, despite objections from state officials.

In a brief order without comment or recorded dissent, the high court rejected Missouri's request to put on hold a federal judge's order requiring that prison authorities transport the inmate to a St. Louis clinic for an abortion.

How Roberts would rule on abortion was a major issue in his confirmation hearings in the Senate. This was the first abortion-related case the court has acted upon since he became chief justice, but since there was no written ruling it does not necessarily signify how he would vote on the issue in future cases.

You can hear James Dobson's molars grinding right now. This is exactly what the radical dominionists don't want: a secular court recognizing civil and human rights, especially for women. They want a theocratic government, a pseudo-Christian analogue to the Taliban in Afghanistan, where the people are ruled by a government according to skewed interpretations of scripture.

And that is why those "in the know" in the right-wing ranks are pushing hard for Harriet Miers, speaking out against the skeptics on the right, and offering reassurances to those who share the vision of governmental control of wombs across the nation. Consider this essay from Lou Dubose in the LA Weekly:

What they should know is that Miers is an anti-abortion-rights zealot, who, as we say in the South, is “keeping company� with a Texas Supreme Court justice who defines anti-abortion zealotry in Texas. Miers’ love interest, Nathan Hecht, anchors the right wing of one of the nation’s most conservative high courts. He is the Texas Supreme Court’s most vocal — and at times most reckless — opponent of a woman’s right to choose. He was the midwife to Miers’ born-again experience in 1979, when the two of them fell to their knees (in prayer) in Miers’ office at the Dallas law firm where they worked. Now, on orders from White House political operative Rove, he is selling Miers to the party’s evangelical Christian base. He’s not saying much about her record.

Miers does have a record, even if it is not a public one. A highly regarded Republican Texas jurist has described Miers’ position on women’s reproductive rights as solidly anti-choice. A political consultant who ran Miers’ campaign for Dallas City Council places her on “the extreme end of the anti-choice movement.� The nondenominational evangelical Christian church Miers attends has been described by one of its former ministers as a “Bible-based congregation that is opposed to abortion.� But most importantly, as president of the Texas Bar Association, Miers campaigned very hard to end the American Bar Association’s support of a woman’s right to choose.

Now this isn't really news -- we've heard a lot about this. But a bit further down it gets even more disturbing:

Miers is a member of an extended family of anti-choice candidates moved into public office by Karl Rove. The Texas Supreme Court is loaded with them. On that court, Justice Hecht was also romantically linked to Priscilla Owen. (It was Owen’s appointment to the federal 5th Circuit Court of Appeals that almost destroyed the United States Senate last year.) Hecht and Owen were two of seven Rove candidates on the Texas court when Rove moved to Washington in 2000. Miers almost became number eight. When U.S. Senator John Cornyn left the court to run for attorney general in 1998, Bush considered appointing Miers to fill the vacant seat. “Everyone was excited about the prospect of a love triangle involving three justices,� said a lawyer working at the court....

...Karl Rove is not a Christian Ideologue. It’s likely that in his heart of hearts he doesn’t care one way or another about abortion. He is a pragmatist who cares about one thing: winning elections. Hecht is cut from different cloth. That’s why Rove has him selling Miers to the party’s evangelicals. Hecht is well-suited to the task. Besides providing a literal and a certain romantic cachet to the term “judicial activism,� Justice Hecht’s opinions on reproductive rights are considered extreme by Texas standards. Like Priscilla Owen, Hecht worked very hard to create insurmountable hurdles for minors going to court to obtain abortions. In one of the Jane Doe minor abortion cases the Texas court decided in 2000, Hecht quoted so extensively from the district-court transcripts of one girl’s case that he revealed her identity — a breach of confidentiality so great that it drew an angry opinion from a fellow Republican justice. When Hecht speaks, the evangelicals in the Republican Party would be wise to listen.

The hate and contempt this man holds for young women who would dare to make their own reproductive choices is palpable. That Hecht is barnstorming for Miers is perhaps the clearest indication of her dark heart, and highlights what her presence on the Supreme Court would mean to the lives of women in this country for many years to come.

Frankly I don't care if Hecht and Miers are literally in bed together. It's the indication that they're philosophically in bed together that scares the bejeezus out of me.

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