ABORTION CONTRARIANISM: STILL WRONG. It must be said that Ben Wittes's inevitable defense of Carhart II is somewhat less objectionable than his typical writing on the subject, though it achieves this only by virtue of its incoherence. He labels the rank sexism of Kennedy's opinion "absurd," and even concedes that the decision is "in some respects ... a big win for anti-abortion activists." (Of course, he's now on the record as claiming that Carhart II might have at least some negative impact on a woman's right to choose an abortion, while overturning Roe entirely would have a positive impact. I would try explain this, but I lack the ability to make heads or tails of the High Contrarian logic that is desirable if you want to write about abortion for most of the nation's premiere op-ed pages.) Still, his bottom-line argument that the Court's rejection of a facial claim against Congress' arbitrary regulation of abortion is likely to prove "constructive" requires evading virtually all of the problematic aspects of the opinion:
