Seven years after striking down a similar ban from the Nevada legislature, the Supreme Court yesterday ruled 5-4 to uphold a federal partial birth abortion ban, one that has an exception for the life of the mother, but not the more broadly defined “health exception.”

Karen Houppert says the Court has broken with thirty years of precedent in wading this deeply in the medical procedure used in abortion. It’s one small step for the “Prolife Master Plan” aided by the new conservative majority of the Supreme Court’s significant break from thirty years of precedent.

Christianity Today agrees that yesterday’s decision was a result of years of strategic chipping away at Roe v. Wade “overarching extremism.”

The Wall Street Journal says the Court actually went out of its way to avoid a sweeping repeal of previous decisions in order to deliver a decision narrowly tailored to a procedure that amounts to infanticide.

Dahlia Lithwick points out that, in his majority opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy seems to be preoccupied with protecting a minority of women who may later regret their decision to have a partial birth abortion.

Andrew Cohen points out the obvious: “You can spin this any other way you want but in the end it comes down to a simple matter of personnel. Justice Alito was willing and able to go in the law where his predecessor, former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wasn't.”

The National Review focuses on the dissenting justices, who are accused having found a constitutional right to infanticide but not the courage to articulate it.

Cynthia Gorney, a former Washington Post reporter, looks at the abortion war through the stories of those who are fighting it.