Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), while questioning Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh about his opinions in a controversial abortion case, focused specifically on Kavanaugh’s use of the phrase “abortion on demand,” which Blumenthal said was a “code word” for anti-abortion activists.
“I’m not familiar with the code word,” Kavanaugh said. He said that he was familiar with the use of the phrase in a concurring opinion by Supreme Court Justice Warren Burger upholding Roe v. Wade.
What that meant, Kavanaugh said, was that “reasonable regulations are permissible as long as they don’t constitute an undue burden.”
Everyone should know by now that the code word is “Rosebud.”
Did Burger use the term in his Roe v. Wade opinion?
Perhaps he should have asked something about “undue burden”. Hypothetical: you want to go to the doctor to get your ingrown toenail fixed. Can you identify any restriction on that which you would consider an “undue burden”?
One man’s undue burden, and I stress the noun man, is denial of a right to abortion for a woman. See, for example, requiring doctors at clinics to have admitting privileges at a local hospital; requiring an advisor to be appointed even after a judge has approved an abortion for a minor; waiting periods; counseling, etc.
It’s one of those legal phrases with little intrinsic meaning but generating lots of hot air when wielded by ideologues.
Undue burdens are ones that the burdened person doesn’t somehow deserve.