ONE THING I knew I never wanted to write was an opinion piece about was abortion. It̢۪s a topic that I think very few really enjoy discussing.

Yet, I decided to write about the one topic I wanted to avoid because of a decision last week by the United States Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court, in a split 5-4 decision, upheld a ban on partial-birth, or late-term, abortions. The Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act was signed into law by President Bush in 2003, but was blocked by three lower courts from taking effect. The decision now allows the law to proceed.

I found this decision to be a terrible blow to women̢۪s health because of one key problem: the Supreme Court̢۪s decision makes no exception for the life of the mother.
It is the first time since the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion that the high court has approved an abortion restriction without creating an exception for the health of the mother.

Just seven years ago, the Supreme Court stopped a similar piece of legislation from becoming law in Nebraska because it said that it was unconstitutional.
It was deemed unconstitutional because it lacked an exception for the health of the mother.

So, has the constitution changed a lot in the last seven years? No, but the Court has. One key difference is that Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, popularly considered to be “the swing vote,� has left and was replaced by Samuel Alito.
That one vote was the difference that conservatives needed to get this approved.
This has now become a federal law, which means that it applies to every state in the nation, including California.

In other words, a woman who is told that she will die if she gives birth to her baby will not be able to terminate the pregnancy for medical reasons. Normally, such birth defects and health concerns over a developing fetus aren̢۪t even known by doctors or the mother until after the first trimester.

Make no mistake about it; these are not women who are using abortion as a form of birth control. These are women who might have been overjoyed to be pregnant and are later absolutely devastated to learn that having the baby is not a viable option and could kill them.

The Supreme Court̢۪s message to these women is: You have no options, so good luck. They don̢۪t care if the baby is going to be born with horrible birth defects that can never be fixed or if it̢۪s going to die shortly after birth, they don̢۪t care if the mother is killed or forced to undergo kidney transplants or other major procedures after the birth.

If you are a woman, five of the members of the Supreme Court do not care about you, and they won̢۪t care about your disfigured or disabled child either.

I find this to be appalling. Let me just get this out of the way now: I am against abortion personally.

Politically, I am pro-choice because I still think that women should have the right to make this decision for themselves. I think that abortion is wrong in most instances except for those in which the pregnancy occurred as a result of rape or incest, or if the woman̢۪s life is in danger.

Rape or incest cases are known immediately, so women in those circumstances can chose to terminate their pregnancies in the first trimester and those early abortions are still legal.

However, if a woman̢۪s life is endangered by her pregnancy, it is often not known until much later. In those situations, the options for the woman are to have the baby, and risk the life of her baby and of herself, or to have a late-term abortion.

Yes, late-term abortions are horrific. I couldn̢۪t stomach detailing that information for you here, but it is out there for those who want to learn about it. Because of its gruesome details, women don̢۪t choose to have late-term abortions on a whim.

In other words, women haven̢۪t been going around being pregnant for eight months and then just deciding because they are divorcing their husbands to have late-term abortions. It̢۪s not like that.

Women have the procedure if they are told that the children that they are carrying are seriously deformed and/or pose a life-threatening situation to them. Now, the procedure is no longer available.

The consequences of this ban will be far-reaching, and it will raise serious questions.
When women die because of this split decision by the Supreme Court, what recourse will their families have? Who will pay for the countless medical procedures and lifelong institutionalizations that thousands of these severely deformed children will face?

Unfortunately, we may soon find out the answers to those questions.