Demagogue

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously today that the lower courts were wrong to declare a New Hampshire abortion law unconstitutional in its entirety. Instead, the justices said, the lower courts should look for a less drastic way to repair the statute's flaws.

Abortion-rights advocates have attacked the New Hampshire law, which demands that parents be notified before a teenager ends her pregnancy, because in their view it fails to provide adequately for exceptions to protect the health of the mother in medical emergencies that are not life-threatening.

... "We do not revisit our abortion precedents today, but rather address a question of remedy," Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote at the outset, in what could be her last opinion.

... The decision has been eagerly awaited by people on all sides of the abortion debate and by officials in the many other states that impose some restrictions on teenagers seeking abortions.