Campaign finance. Abortion.

The Supreme Court put defenders of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law on the defensive today in a spirited argument that suggested the court could soon open a significant loophole in the measure.

...[The] new majority may view more expansively the Constitution’s protection of political messages as free speech and invite a flood of advertising paid for by corporations and unions as the 2008 elections move into high gear.

Not that the campaign finance law is either perfect or effective.  But it's painful to watch a discredited Court bludgeon its way through social and political progress of the past several decades.

Meanwhile, there's been a response to the disgraceful ruling on an abortion procedure.  In New York State, steps are being taken to preserve a woman's right to an abortion.

Gov. Eliot Spitzer plans to introduce legislation to overhaul the state’s pioneering but antiquated abortion law...

Mr. Spitzer’s bill, the Reproductive Health and Privacy Protection Act, would update the current law, which — for example — does not include a provision allowing for abortions late in pregnancies to protect a woman’s health. State laws on the books also consider abortion a homicide, with broad exceptions allowed. Mr. Spitzer’s proposal would remove abortion from criminal statutes and make it a matter of professional and medical discretion. It would also repeal an old statute “that criminalizes, among other things, providing nonprescription contraception to minors.”