http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&e=2&u=/ap/20040601/ap_on_re_us/abortion_lawsuits Judge: Bush Abortion Ban Unconstitutional 40 minutes ago Add U.S. National - AP to My Yahoo! By DAVID KRAVETS, Associated Press Writer SAN FRANCISCO - A federal judge Tuesday declared the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act unconstitutional, saying the measure infringes on a woman's right to choose. AP Photo The ruling applies to the nation's 900 or so Planned Parenthood (news - web sites) clinics and their doctors, who perform roughly half of all abortions in the United States. U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton's ruling came in one of three lawsuits challenging the legislation President Bush (news - web sites) signed last year. "The act poses an undue burden on a woman's right to choose an abortion," she wrote. Federal judges in New York and Nebraska also heard challenges to the law earlier this year but have yet to rule. Planned Parenthood lawyer Beth Parker welcomed the ruling, saying it sends a "strong message" to Attorney General John Ashcroft (news - web sites) and the Bush administration "that the government should not be intruding on very sensitive and private medical decisions." Government attorneys did not immediately return calls for comment. Bush signed the law in November, saying "a terrible form of violence has been directed against children who are inches from birth while the law looked the other way." The law represented the first substantial federal legislation limiting a woman's right to choose an abortion, and abortion rights activists said it ran counter to three decades of Supreme Court precedent. In the banned procedure ¡ª known as intact dilation and extraction to doctors, but called partial-birth abortion by opponents ¡ª the living fetus is partially removed from the womb, and its skull is punctured or crushed. Justice Department (news - web sites) attorneys argued that the procedure is inhumane, causes pain to the fetus and is never medically necessary. Abortion proponents, however, argued that a woman's health during an abortion is more important than how the fetus is terminated, and that the banned method is often a safer solution that a conventional abortion, in which the fetus is dismembered in the womb and then removed in pieces. The measure, which President Clinton (news - web sites) had twice vetoed, was seen by abortion rights activists as a fundamental departure from the Supreme Court's 1973 precedent in Roe v. Wade (news - web sites). It shifted the debate from a woman's right to choose and focused on the plight of the fetus. Abortion advocates said the law was the government's first step toward outlawing abortion. Violating the law carries a two-year prison term. Late last year, Hamilton, a Clinton appointee, and federal judges in New York and Lincoln, Neb., blocked the act from being enforced pending the outcome of the court challenges. They began hearing testimony March 29. Doctors have construed the Supreme Court's decision in Roe. v. Wade to mean they can perform abortions usually until the 24th to 28th week after conception, or until the "point of viability," when a healthy fetus is thought to be able to survive outside the womb. Generally, abortions after the "point of viability" are performed only to preserve the mother's health. Doctors at about 900 abortion clinics practice under the Planned Parenthood umbrella, performing about half the nation's 1.3 million annual abortions. The Nebraska and New York cases are expected to conclude within weeks. The outcomes, which may conflict with one another, will almost certainly be appealed to the Supreme Court. The New York case was brought by the National Abortion Federation (news - web sites), which represents nearly half the nation's abortion providers. The Nebraska case was brought by a few abortion doctors. The U.S. Supreme Court (news - web sites) had overturned a Nebraska partial-birth abortion law because it did not allow the banned procedure even when a doctor believes the method is the best way to preserve the woman's health. To get around the decision, Congress simply declared that the procedure is never medically necessary ¡ª and during weeks of testimony, doctors testifying for the government stressed that same point ¡ª claiming that there are better alternatives to the method, and that it may even be harmful to women. Witnesses for the abortion providers, however, testified in all three trials that the banned method is often preferred and sometimes necessary to preserve a woman's health. Congressional sponsors said the ban would outlaw only 2,200 or so abortions a year. But abortion providers testified the banned method can happen even at times when doctors try to avoid it, such as when they attempt to remove the fetus from the womb in pieces. Because of the possibility that the fetus may partially exit a woman during an otherwise legal procedure, abortion rights advocates said the law could ban almost all second-trimester abortions, which account for about 10 percent of all abortions in the United States. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- How in the world is partial birth abortion legal, it's killing a baby that's basically alive. There's absolutely no reasons to do this. I respect a women's right to choose as much as the next guy, but if the women chose to carry the baby for 9 month only to kill it minutes before inception, then I have a huge problem with that. The kid at that point is alive and sentient, killing it would be the equivalent of murder. I've talked with some of my "liberal" friends before and most of them agrees that partial birth is wrong. I'm just curious how many ppl would actually support this legislation.
The last polling data I saw said that nearly 80% of Americans agree with you. Once you explain the application of this procedure, there is little support for it.
"In the banned procedure ¡ª known as intact dilation and extraction to doctors, but called partial-birth abortion by opponents ¡ª the living fetus is partially removed from the womb, and its skull is punctured or crushed." And people have problems with animal cruelty. I'll never understand this.
There's no such thing as a "partial birth" abortion. It's a political term generated by anti-choice activists. Much like the terms "anti-choice" and "pro-choice," the term "partial birth" is a political invention. The intact dilation and extraction is a very specific procedure that is often used to protect the woman's health. But the recent legislation was worded so vaguely that it effectively overturned the intentions of the original Roe v. Wade ruling. This, of course, is illegal.
I'm not one to advocate abortion, but it's not like a girl can go up to an abortion clinic 8 months pregnant and ask for a partial birth abortion. It seldomly ever happens and it only happens when there is risk to the life of the mother.
Could people actually walk in and just ask for an intact dilation and extraction or is it just an option that comes up when a women's health is in danger? Because you can't abort after the 28th week right? Doesn't that mean you could never walk in when you are 9 months pregnant and have this procedure? EDIT Looks like my questions were answered above.
Yes...if it were to protect a woman's life, we'd have a problem. Specifically, Roe v. Wade said a woman's health had to be at issue in order for a woman to have an abortion outside of the first trimester. But later courts have expanded that to mean even mental health. And this ends up being the "health issue" involved in the VAST majority of abortions performed after the first trimester. Keep in mind...this doesn't mean the lady is losing it...this can be as simple as saying, "i don't think i'm gonna be able to support this child and it has me really stressing out." These are the majority of the "health issues" that we're aborting babies because of past the first trimester for according to abortion doctors on the record in Congressional testimony and according to the reports sent in by abortion doctors to the state reporting agencies. And this leads us to partial birth abortion. A procedure where it's impossible for a woman to deliver wholly...for "medical reasons"...but where the largest part of the body literally leaves the body only to be crushed or have its brain sucked out by a vacuum tube some 5 seconds before what would otherwise be its first breath. You can call it dilation and extraction...you can call it partial birth abortion...you can call it a lollipop. It doesn't change the nature of what's being done. The baby is partially born....and then destroyed. That's it.
I fully understand the arguments against abortion after a certain stage (or at all -- based on your beliefs about when life begins). This ban, however, was over a particular procedure rather than the stage of the pregnancy. The procedure itself with a huge emotional impact. If the procedure truly is much safer for the woman, as the doctors say, then aren't they correct in saying this 'ban' was really a wedge to something more encompassing??? IF you are going to accept abortion at that stage in pregnancy, then shouldn't the health of the woman be paramount? Possibly they should be addressing when abortion is appropriate rather than monkeying with particular procedures? But that's not as easy a sell.
The problem is, this particular procedure only takes place during a specific part of the pregnancy, within the very last trimester. The timing issue is already decided... At least the Roe v. Wade decision provided SOME dignity to the unborn. It said, "look...this isn't something to be monkeying with...you can't do this past the first trimester unless the woman's health is in real jeopardy." Subsequent courts have expanded that out and made the sense of "real jeopardy" a joke. I don't think there's anything wrong with saying, "you know what...this particular procedure is so grisly that we can't support it. if the court in Roe v. Wade was right, then this certainly seems like the kind of procedure we should be saying 'no' to given its timing and given the nature of the procedure itself." the Congressional testimony of doctors regarding the heightened sense of pain for a newborn is particularly unpleasant. i've yet to see a doctor make a clear case for why this is safer. in fact, i've seen tons of testimony to the contrary...saying that if it's unsafe for a woman to be having a baby, you sure as hell shouldn't be pulling it halfway out of her body to terminate it. at that point, what's the health risk??? she's only got a push left to go.
My understanding of the procedure is that if it is safe enough to undergo this procedure, it is also safe enough to deliver the baby. So, while it may be safer to do ID&E than to dismember the baby, there is no safety difference between delivering a baby and crushing its skull and just delivering the baby and letting it live. So, the sides are arguing two different things. Pro-life is saying there's no medical need because there are no pregnancies whose danger would be lessened by the procedure. Pro-choice is saying that assuming you're going to get an abortion no matter what, this procedure is sometimes the safer one. Both are true, but are talking on different subjects. Btw, wasn't it pretty much a foregone conclusion that the judge would declare it unconstitutional. Was she just holding onto it for awhile to make it no look like so much of a farce? On to the Supreme Court we go.
I personally don't have a problem with banning these unless the mother is in physical danger of death or serious health complications. If it becomes a choice between mother or unborn child, mother has to come first. My only question is how often this is performed. I know that in things I've read, doctors have said this represents less than 2 percent of all abortion procedures. Is that correct? If so, how many of those 2 percent can we legitimately say aren't for the health of the mother? Just wondering out loud.
I guess the difference is that the baby may not be at a stage that it could survive outside of the womb. Again, i come to the ban of a procedure being a poor substitute for a ban on a late term abortion. Removing an option to a doctor that might be necessary in protecting a woman's health. Quite possibly it was a procedure that is currently over used -- but the criticism i've read about the ban was that it was too encompassing. My fear was that it was ideological -- a first step -- rather than addressing what it pretended to address -- and it removed an option that could safeguard the woman --even if the situations where it was needed were very few.
The ban on late term abortions is in place. It's in Roe v. Wade....again, absent some serious health concerns. The real problem is in the perversion of what "health concerns" means. So that's already in place. This is merely saying that if you're going to do one of these late-term abortions, which by law can ONLY happen if there is a health concern, you can't do it THIS way. You can't deliver the baby halfway and then crush its skull or suck its brains out.
I don't know the answer to your question exactly. But I've read it before....and again, it comes back to the perversion of what you call a "health issue." I'm with you...if we're talking serious helath complications or death...then we've got a real problem there. But when we're talking about watering that down to mean any mental health problem, like stress, you can imagine...then I have a real problem with that. I think that makes an absolute mockery of what the court intended in Roe v. Wade. Not that I'm a big champion of Roe v. Wade, either! What I've read is that the overwhelming majority of abortions carried on past the first trimester are for these "soft" health concerns....mental health...and not for real serious health complications or life/death situations. Again, that's from Congressional testimony of abortion providers and from the reports they submit to state reporting agencies which are then compiled and published. If I remember right, the leading abortion provider in some state (Ohio, I think) said under oath before Congress that he had not performed an abortion past the first trimester because the mother's life was in jeopardy in "years."
Gotcha Max. You are much better versed in this issue than i am. I know it's very important to you -- and you are a well spoken advocate of your beliefs. I too find the procedure inhumane. I can, however, understand the concerns of the pro-choice crowd when changes are made in this area. I guess it was destined for a battle -- and that's what we'll have.
I appreciate the kind words. Thank you. You're right. This thing had Supreme Court on it from the moment it was written. What bothers me is that it seems the Supreme Court in Roe had far more respect for the lives of the unborn than the activists today currently have. We essentially have abortion on demand in this country. And it's not enough.
