Meanwhile, back at the Supreme Court

Our justices try their hand at medicine and don't make the cut.

"After 120 minutes of exquisitely detailed medical inquiry, the justices have proven beyond a reasonable doubt that they just are not doctors. They have tried valiantly to understand the medical testimony and to analyze the protocols. They struggle to weigh the risks of lethally injecting a fetus in the uterus. But that's just not why they went to law school.

By the same token, six congressional hearings and dozens of witnesses have proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the United States Congress is not a body of doctors, either. Indeed, their ability to simply ignore inconvenient medical facts suggests that if they were doctors, they'd be rather rotten ones. If the justices are looking for the cleanest, easiest way out of this whole partial-birth abortion business, I would suggest that if institutional humility means anything at all, it means that when you can't understand the medicine, you stay out of the operating room. When you find yourself lacking the skills and experience to define the fine line between the intent and outcomes of similar medical procedures, or to weigh the hazards arising from each, perhaps the most prudent thing to do is to leave it to those who do."