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shawa
CNO
Joined: 03 Sep 2004
Posts: 2004
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 Posted: Sat Jul 09, 2005 11:30 am Post subject: Appeals Court Voids Ban on 'Partial Birth' Abortions |
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This will undoubtedly be appealed to the Supreme Court.
I hope that a conservative has replaced O'Connor by then.
SHE WAS THE DECIDING VOTE in upholding this horrific practice of stabbing scissors into the skull of a partially born baby, and sucking its brains out!!
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New York Times
| Quote: | Appeals Court Voids Ban on 'Partial Birth' Abortions
By JULIA PRESTON
Published: July 9, 2005
A federal appeals court yesterday upheld a ruling by a lower court judge striking down the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, which bars a method of abortion generally used after the first trimester.
The decision, by a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, in St. Louis, was the first that an appeals court has issued on the ban, which Congress approved in November 2003 with the strong backing of President Bush.
The ruling, written by Judge Kermit Edward Bye and joined by Judges James B. Loken and George G. Fagg, found the law unconstitutional because, while making an exception to the ban to protect the life of a pregnant woman, it made no such exception to preserve her health.
That an appeals court has now ruled on the matter moves the law one step closer to a likely review by the Supreme Court, perhaps in the coming term. In a rare point of agreement between adversaries in the abortion debate, advocates on both sides said the stakes had now been raised even further in Mr. Bush's selection of a nominee to succeed Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.
The Eighth Circuit's ruling rests heavily on a decision by the Supreme Court, which, in Stenberg v. Carhart five years ago, struck down such a ban that had been enacted by Nebraska. Before Justice O'Connor announced her retirement last week, the balance on the court in favor of a constitutional right to abortion was 6 to 3. But in Stenberg, the majority was only 5 to 4, with Justice Anthony M. Kennedy voting to sustain the state ban and Justice O'Connor's vote making the majority.
The appeals court's decision yesterday "only underscores the fact that the successor to Justice O'Connor will cast the deciding vote on whether this barbaric partial-birth-abortion practice will continue," said Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee.
Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which brought challenges to the federal and Nebraska laws, said the ruling showed that the nomination process would be "critical." Justice O'Connor played a pivotal role in sustaining rulings that "women's health has to be paramount," Ms. Northup said.
Like the challenge to the state law, the case decided yesterday was brought in Nebraska. It was one of three in which abortion rights groups sued to overturn the federal legislation as soon as Mr. Bush signed it into law. In the two other cases, lower courts in California and New York likewise overturned the law; those decisions, too, are being appealed by the Bush administration.
The Eighth Circuit's decision upheld a ruling by Richard G. Kopf, a federal district judge in Nebraska.
"Because the act does not contain a health exception, it is unconstitutional," the appeals court wrote.
The panel did not go further to analyze a second point by Judge Kopf, who had said the ban imposed an "undue burden" on a woman's right to abortion.
The Justice Department can now request that the full Eighth Circuit court hear the case, or it has 90 days to file an appeal directly with the Supreme Court.
The law forbids a method of abortion that has been infrequently used, in rare or unexpected complications of pregnancy mainly in the second or third trimester. Sometimes called D and X, for dilation and extraction, it entails partly extracting an intact fetus from a woman's uterus and killing it by collapsing and removing the brain from the skull so that the fetus can pass through the birth canal.
Opponents of abortion refer to the method as partial-birth abortion and denounce it as brutal and uncivilized. Opponents of the law, on the other hand, do not primarily defend the procedure itself, but attack the measure on the ground that it curtails a larger right to abortion.
The appeals court yesterday left a small door open for a ban on the procedure in the future. The judges observed that there was a fierce dispute among doctors about whether the procedure was safe and medically necessary, and they lamented the "dearth of studies" on the subject. They said that medical advances might one day make the practice obsolete and that then a ban might be widely supported by doctors and would no longer be unconstitutional. |
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“I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.” (Thomas Paine, 1776) |
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GM Strong
Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy
Joined: 18 Sep 2004
Posts: 1579
Location: Penna
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| Posted: Sat Jul 09, 2005 2:31 pm Post subject: |
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When the court reconvenes in Sept. the Justices should have been appointed. If the Liberals try obstructing and if the Republican leadership holds firm, the Presidents nominees should be in place. If the Republicans cave, the leadership will all be in the sewer and they should just let the minority have it. If the Libs are still filibustering, the electorate will revolt (verbally). These are critical times.
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8th Army Korea 68-69 |
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