Let's get this straight. A federal judge in San Francisco rules that a restriction on abortion (in this case a ban on partial birth abortions) is unconstitutional.

Talk about a dog-bites-man story.

This ruling was as predictable as the sun risiing in the east.

This, of course, is not the final word on the subject. That will belong to the Supreme Court -- and it will be interesting to see how the nine justices will rule. In the past, they have said that reasonable restrictions can be placed on abortion -- and if the partial-birth abortion ban is not reasonable, then nothing is.

The court recently barred the execution of mentally retarded murderers and based some of their logic on the (flawed) perception that public opinion was turning against those executions.

Well, public opinion overwhelmingly supports a ban on this procedure, which the late Sen. Patrick Moynihan once referred to as the closest thing to infanticide. We'll see if the justices are willing to take that into account.