Supreme Court upholds first nationwide ban on an abortion procedure

Source: AP

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court upheld the nationwide ban on a controversial abortion procedure Wednesday, handing abortion opponents the long-awaited victory they expected from a more conservative bench.

The 5-4 ruling said the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act that Congress passed and
President Bush signed into law in 2003 does not violate a woman's constitutional right to an abortion.

The opponents of the act "have not demonstrated that the Act would be unconstitutional in a large fraction of relevant cases," Justice
Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion.

The decision pitted the court's conservatives against its liberals, with President Bush's two appointees, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice
Samuel Alito, siding with the majority.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070418/ap_on_go_su_co/scotus_abortion

Source: Associated Press

Court backs ban on abortion procedure

By MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press Writer
2 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court upheld the nationwide ban on a
controversial abortion procedure Wednesday, handing abortion
opponents the long-awaited victory they expected from a more
conservative bench.

The 5-4 ruling said the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act that Congress
passed and President Bush signed into law in 2003 does not violate
a woman's constitutional right to an abortion.

The opponents of the act "have not demonstrated that the Act would
be unconstitutional in a large fraction of relevant cases," Justice
Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion.

-snip-

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070418/ap_on_go_su_co/scotus_abortion

Nope, not good at all.

And remember,t here is no such thing as a Partial Birth Abortion!

Abortion technique has change. Dr. Haskell from Cincinnati, Ohio has perfected the technique in the 90's. No longer is there anything close to "partial-birth" abortions.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=688665&mesg_id=688768

They no longer use this so-called, "partial birth" technique. Briefly, let me tell you what I know.

Today, the process is a 2-day or 3-day technique. Initially, the woman's cervix is dilated with seaweed and given medications too, I think pitocin. Next, the fetus is injected with Lanoxin, a heart medication...which stops the pulse...This then causing the body to trigger spontaneous abortion of a dead fetus. After a day or 2, depending on the cervical dilatation quality, the fetus is removed vaginally in a spontaneous abortion fashion...like removing a stillborn.

takes 2 to 3 days?! Aren't these types of procedures used when the fetus has died or has encephalytus (sp?) which is an enlarged brain?

I would think that the procedure that the UNjustices declared illegal would have been easier on the women....?? Certainly it didn't take 2 or 3 days, did it?

I can't believe we have to listen to male judges when it comes to our health....when did these lawyers get medical degrees?

I'd appreciate any medical info...thx.

the supreme court and politicians to decide whats best for women.

The whole issue is a sad one.

The new SC decision allows no exceptions, even to protect the health of the mother. What if a woman needs an emergency abortion to save her life, and doesn't have the 2-3 day window before she dies?

The Supreme Court just consigned her to death.

There are instances in which it is undesirable to carry out a 2 to 3 day procedure, or to induce labour and effect delivery of a dead fetus.

One of the reasons that either may not be desirable is quite simply that the woman does not desire it. In pre-"viability" terminations (see below), that is the only criterion. In later terminations, the only other proper criteria are medical, i.e. it may be in the woman's best interests, for reasons other than her own preferences, not to undergo labour or hysterotomy (incision).

To quote the news article cited in post 13 in the thread you linked to:

AMA Recommends Alternatives To So-Called 'Partial Birth' Abortions

The AMA recommends against intact dilation and extraction, unless alternative procedures pose a greater risk to the woman.

One alternative procedure is called "labor induction," in which a solution is injected into the amniotic fluid, ending the life of the fetus and inducing labor.

Other options include surgical removal of the fetus, and surgical removal of the uterus and fetus. The latter two methods are rarely used due to the significant medical risks they pose to the woman.

The AMA report goes on to say, "The physician must, however, retain the discretion" to decide what procedure is used. The AMA says in some rare cases, intact dilation and extraction is the safest method of late-term abortion.

Of course, the AMA falls for the shell game too: stage of pregnancy rather than method of termination.

There is no demonstrated justification for this legislation, period. It is therefore an unacceptable impairment of women's exercise of the right to life and liberty: it interferes in women's freedom to choose the medical procedure that is best for themselves, whatever their reasons; and in some cases it will endanger a woman's life.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Abortion_States.html

"This invites all sorts of mischief," said Louise Melling, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Reproductive Freedom Project.

"You have the court issuing a decision that radically undermines the long-standing protection for women's health," she said. "The court is saying that in the face of any uncertainty, the tie goes to the legislature, not to the doctors."

http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0410_0113_ZO.html
(Roe v. Wade)

To summarize and to repeat:

1. A state criminal abortion statute of the current Texas type, that excepts from criminality only a lifesaving procedure on behalf of the mother, without regard to pregnancy stage and without recognition of the other interests involved, is violative of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

(a) For the stage prior to approximately the end of the first trimester, the abortion decision and its effectuation must be left to the medical judgment of the pregnant woman's attending physician.

(b) For the stage subsequent to approximately the end of the first trimester, the State, in promoting its interest in the health of the mother, may, if it chooses, regulate the abortion procedure in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health.

(c) For the stage subsequent to viability, the State in promoting its interest in the potentiality of human life may, if it chooses, regulate, and even proscribe, abortion except where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother.

It needs to be noted that the procedure that this legislation supposedly prohibits is most commonly used in second-trimester pregnancies. As I understand it, the legislation does not specify the period of pregnancy to which it applies; it applies to any abortion. Although this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intact_dilation_and_extraction
refers to abortions after 21 weeks as "late-term", that is hardly accurate.

http://pt.wkhealth.com/pt/re/adcn/abstract.00042223-200305000-00009.htm;jsessionid=GmGHy4TJBtyrFpqwBwt4dQpbmnp1Q6pkY1bVb1dF1B4czRzZ82QG!95098694!-949856144!8091!-1

Duration of survival varied widely (median 60 minutes at 20-22 weeks), and this did not increase with gestation until 23 weeks (median six hours), probably because of selective treatment. Survival curves are presented for each gestation group. At 23 weeks, 4.5% survived to 1 year of age; all were > 500 g birth weight. Below 23 weeks gestation, none survived, and 94% had died within 4 hours of age.

My condolences to women and women's friends south of the border. I'd suggest giving serious thought to what Madam Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg said:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1154AP_Scotus_Abortion.html?source=mypi

In dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the ruling "cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to chip away at a right declared again and again by this court."

... "Today's decision is alarming," Ginsburg wrote in dissent for the court's liberal bloc. She said the ruling "refuses to take ... seriously" previous Supreme Court decisions on abortion.

unless the mother's health is in jeopardy. If you want an abortion, you have a certain window of opportunity: 3, maybe 4, months tops. After that it's too late - except for very extentuating circumstances - i.e. baby is not viable, is severly deformed, etc. or the mother is of a mental state she could not know, or understand, her condition. That's my opinion. I'm sure I'll get flamed for it. That's o.k. It's a free country and I can think what I please.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Seriously, saying you are against "Partial Birth Abortion", not even a medical term, is no different than saying you are against open heart surgery, or any other NECESSARY medical procedure.

probably serve them better to approach those whose minds they would like to change with a bit of information, given in a thoughtful and respectful way. It does not help one's position to attack those, who are not quite in agreement with you, with a baseball bat. It does little in the way of educating them and, in fact, will more than likely alienate them further from your position.

I have been on this board for a long time and I have never been treated in the manner you have treated me in your post. Not that I didn't expect a bit of vitriol, having waded into the "abortion debate." However, I would appreciate, in the future, if you are tempted to respond to my posts that you refrain from cussing at me.

On edit:

I am sorry I didn't realize the court upheld a law without a provision safeguarding the health of the mother. I just read that here:

"This time a different lineup of justices upheld a federal version of essentially the same law, even though it does not contain a so-called health exception that would permit the banned abortion procedure when a physician deemed it necessary to safeguard a woman's health."

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0419/p01s03-usju.html

So, for the record... I do not agree with the Supreme Court decision, but my feelings about late term abortion stand. I also realize, MOST late term abortions ARE to protect the health of the mother and to terminate pregnancies in which the fetus is in trouble.

Thanks for helping to enlighten me on matters I misunderstood in such a kind and thoughtful way. I look forward to more of your enlightening posts...

If you want an abortion, you have a certain window of opportunity: 3, maybe 4, months tops. After that it's too late - except for very extentuating circumstances ...

Can you direct us to the stone tablets on which that's all engraved?

Maybe you can let us know what windows of opportunity you find acceptable for the exercise of a few of your own rights.

That's my opinion. I'm sure I'll get flamed for it. That's o.k. It's a free country and I can think what I please.

Yay you. And women can do what they please with their lives and bodies. Right? I mean, freedom isn't just for you, right ...?

... the mother's health ..."

The person we are talking about is a WOMAN, for the love of the planet. Do we really have to buy into this right-wing distortion of the discourse?

without going ballistic? I don't have any stone tablets. I dont' write laws. I don't force anybody to do, or not do anything. I simply stated my opinion. Oh, but I get it, if I don't toe the line with "the agenda" I get bashed, right? I thought stuff like that only happened over at Free Republic.

I'm a Democrat and I don't like abortion. Get used to it. (There are a lot of us out here who don't think the entire Democratic platform rests on abortion issues.) Does that mean I think they should be illegal? Hell no. I think they should be legal, safe and rare. (Ever heard that before?) I also believe there is a point of gestation where killing a fetus cruel and barbaric and after such a point, abortions should not be performed unless the health of the mother is in jeopardy. Sometimes, in my mind, it's too late to "fix" things. That is how I feel at my moral core. You feel how you wish. I respect your opinions, no matter how much I may disagree with them. I expect the same treatment. It's called tolerance - another issue we liberals like to wave around - except when we get around folks who don't agree with us. (Ironic, isn't it?)

perhaps you'll read up before you spout of in favor against laws in the future instead of believeing idiotic RW talking points.

Get a grip.

and next time, do us alll a favor and read up or put a sock in it, dear.

Why is it so hard for you to allow me to express my opinion

I don't get to allow or disallow your expressing of opinions. I'd have thought you might have noticed this. So why would you suggest that I was not allowing you do so so, or wanting or trying not to allow you to do so?

Why would you ask an irrelevant question loaded with whatever false premise you stuffed in there in the context of a discussion about something, in which all participants normally challenge the opinions expressed by others? To portray your interlocutor as having done something evil s/he has not done? Can you spell d-e-m-a-g-o-g-u-e-r-y?

In that vein, the going ballistic, or its many variants, is always handy too. Yes, the person you are talking to is just a loon with no self-control or reason ... or at least maybe your words will give someone that impression.

Express your opinion to your heart's content and 'til the cows come home. Why would you imagine that when you do this you will not meet with disagreement? I have to assume you do imagine that, since you start out here by commenting on the very fact that I have responded to your expression of opinion. One might have thought you'd expect that to occur. Especially since you said something along the lines of "flame me".

I'm a Democrat and I don't like abortion. Get used to it.

I couldn't care less about what you are and what you don't like. Since I'm not a resident of the US, it doesn't much matter to me one way or the other. If I were, I still would be unable to care less. Your opinion on abortion is of the most supreme irrelevance to anything.

The issue here is not abortion. It is women's exercise of fundamental, human, constitutional rights, and what justification there may be for interfering in that exercise. Your personal likes and dislikes have nothing to do with it.

I think they should be legal, safe and rare. (Ever heard that before?)

Yup, and it's made me puke every time since the very first one. I can only imagine how "ballistic" you might go if I told you that you expressing your opinions should be legal, safe and rare. I mean, I dislike your opinions as much as you dislike abortions, so that seems only fair.

I also believe there is a point of gestation where killing a fetus cruel and barbaric and after such a point, abortions should not be performed unless the health of the mother<*> is in jeopardy.

And I believe there are some opinions that are too disgusting to be allowed to share the air I breathe. Yours isn't actually one of them (my opinion about your opinion not being the criterion, in my mind, for whether it should be allowed out in public), but let's pretend it is. We can trade your desire to control women for my desire to control you, and we'll both win.

<*> So, what is it about the word "woman" that apparently sticks in so many people's craws in this context, anyhow?

That is how I feel at my moral core. You feel how you wish. I respect your opinions, no matter how much I may disagree with them.

Bullshit. You want to tell me -- should I happen to be a pregnant woman in the US who doesn't meet your little moral tests -- what to do.

Odd how I just haven't expressed an analogous opinion in your direction.

I think your opinion stinks. But you go right on spouting it, 'k?

It's called tolerance - another issue we liberals like to wave around - except when we get around folks who don't agree with us. (Ironic, isn't it?)

You really do need to investigate the differences between your opinions and laws that violate women's rights. And between tolerance and stupidity.

I'm not so stupid as to sit back in silence while someone spouts misogynistic opinions that amount to calls for violations of rights. And I am under no obligation whatsoever to do so in the name of "tolerance". Tolerance means I don't try to get you thrown in jail for what you say. Not that I applaud your saying it.

You like tolerance so much, you be a good "liberal" and keep your nose out of women's lives.

And cut the interminable attempts at diverting the discussion from the rights of women to the holiness of your opinions. Holy they ain't. Your right to express them is sacrosanct, and so is my right to call them what they are.

I find that quite ironic.

is that you have once again chosen to misrepresent what I said.

Here you are on a discussion board. See that word? It's where people discuss things.

Did you at some time acquire the notion that blatting your opinion out and saying IcanthinkwhatIwantit'safreecountry (btw, here's a surprise: you can think what you want anywhere on earth) constitutes discussion??

What I have attempted to explain to you is that your opinions about abortion are of no consequence IN A DISCUSSION ABOUT LIMITATIONS ON THE EXERCISE OF RIGHTS unless you can offer a reason why YOUR OPINIONS about anything should be determinative of how OTHER PEOPLE'S RIGHTS are dealt with in PUBLIC POLICY.

Women's rights do not depend on your opinion, about abortion or anything else. Whether it is justified to interfere in women's exercise of their rights is not decided by your opinion about abortion or anything else.

And if you think otherwise, it's time you responded to my request:

Maybe you can let us know what windows of opportunity you find acceptable for the exercise of a few of your own rights.

How about: if you haven't responded to my post within 15 minutes of my posting, you have may not post a response. Seems reasonable to me. I shouldn't have to keep checking back here, on the off chance you've said something I want to respond to. Waste of my time. I don't like having my time wasted, and that's my opinion, and you'd better be tolerant of it. Never mind that silly free speech stuff; having my time wasted offends me. Your window opens now.

you win I guess.

"I know you are but what am I?"

:puke:

The problems arise when you assume you can make health decisions for other people. I had incredibly difficult weird situations with regard to gynecological problems. I am otherwise an extremely healthy person. I don't "like" abortion either and luckily never had to have one. But I came that close, and my experiences made me appreciate the fact that abortion is a medical issue, not a moral one. I was in a European hospital for a different reason and met a woman who had come in for an abortion because she was 52. She said to me, "I raised my family." She was afraid that if anything happened to her, her children would have to raise her child. She did not want to inflict that burden on her family. She felt she was too old to have the child. I have to respect that.

I also have to respect the choices of other women. I might not make the same choice, but they have to live their lives. Every child deserves to be wanted and loved. And people can't force themselves to want and love a child.

> unless the mother's health is in jeopardy

Well, there you go. No exception in this legislation for the woman's health. What now?

Oh, by the way -- this legislation doesn't address the timing either, as it is a ban on a medical procedure rather than, e.g., a 3rd-trimester ban. One of the other more risky and expensive abortion procedures can still be performed in almost all cases.

These aren't the droids you're looking for.

It is a ban on a medical procedure rather than, e.g., a 3rd-trimester ban.

I do wish people would stop falling for the shell game, where the anti-choicers pretend they're talking about one thing and are really talking about something entirely different. The legislation does indeed prohibit the use of a procedure, not the use of the procedure in abortions at a particular stage of pregnancy.

And that's what I don't get, vis-à-vis Roe v. Wade, e.g., which says:

To summarize and to repeat:

1. A state criminal abortion statute of the current Texas type, that excepts from criminality only a lifesaving procedure on behalf of the mother, without regard to pregnancy stage and without recognition of the other interests involved, is violative of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

(a) For the stage prior to approximately the end of the first trimester, the abortion decision and its effectuation must be left to the medical judgment of the pregnant woman's attending physician.

(b) For the stage subsequent to approximately the end of the first trimester, the State, in promoting its interest in the health of the mother, may, if it chooses, regulate the abortion procedure in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health.

(c) For the stage subsequent to viability, the State in promoting its interest in the potentiality of human life may, if it chooses, regulate, and even proscribe, abortion except where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother.

(We won't bother trying to figure out what "the potentiality of human life" is today, or what the state's interest in it might be ... or how the state's interest in it overrides a woman's interest in her own physical and mental and emotional and social and economic security ...)

I haven't found a link to the actual judgment yet (help?) to see how it addresses this little problem. Roe v. Wade outlined the restrictions on the exercise of rights that the court found to be acceptable, and the acceptable reasons for such restrictions, and the new court seems to have paid no attention.

And I gather it also precludes "health" as a justification, so it seems to run afoul of (c) there, too. Not to mention precluding "appropriate medical judgment" ...

(Basically the on edit part...)

Thank you for offering more information with which to broaden my opinions on this subject as opposed to the vitriol I have received elsewhere. Although, I don't know what a droid is. I'm sure it something sarcastic, but I still feel like you, at least, took a moment to educate rather than berate. Thanks, again.

are a Star Wars reference to the first known cinematic application of the Jedi Mind Trick

Obi Wan Kenobi (to Imperial Storm Troopers): "These aren't the droids you're looking for."
Trooper Squad Leader: "These aren't the droids we're looking for."

If you need something to distract from the nightmare of the remaining bush years, you could try watching all the Star Wars movies back-to-back...

All my apologies; I didn't realize we were in kindergarten.

I thought you'd come here to this adult discussion board and informed the world that you thought something was icky -- oh, and just not allowed under your moral code -- and so nobody else should be allowed to do it if they didn't play by the rules you made, and then got all snotty when somebody didn't take kindly to your arrogant disrespect for other people and their rights. The fact that I didn't expressly point out that your disrespect arose from ignorance as well as arrogance, and then set about educating you, when my expectation of adult discussion is that people educate themselves before opening their mouths, particularly when what comes out is a call to violate someone else's rights ... well, you'll just have to forgive me for that oversight. Please.

even four months. This can be the case for a very young "woman," or for an older woman who assumes she is in menopause. Imagine a 52 year old woman finding herself four months pregnant. It happens.

performed except when the mother's health is at stake, or the fetus is so severely deformed that it will not live after birth?

Making the procedure illegal only forces women to carry babies they know are already dead or will not live long beyond birth. It's emotional torture.

There is this sick idea in the conservative camp that there are women all over just dying to use very late term abortions as birth control. That's not the case in the huge majority of cases.

the legislation the Supreme Court upheld did not have a provision in it providing for the health of the mother. Thanks for taking the time to point out this side of the "argument" without belittling me, discounting my feelings on the subject, or yelling at me. I really appreciate that and it makes it easier for me to reconsider my position under the light of information I may not have considered before. I still do not find late term abortions any less abhorrent, but I can understand - as I have always maintained - there are times when they are needed.

I do not agree with the Supreme Court decision and I do not agree with the original legistlation. However, from what I read here, this could be nothing more than a red herring, or a bone slung to the pro-life base:



So, is this ruling really THAT much of a problem when it comes to the issues you have described, or any other? And if so, how? Thanks.

Instead of a theoretical "facial" attack on the law, the court said such issues should be resolved in individual cases testing how the partial-birth abortion ban act was being applied to a particular woman.

"In an as-applied challenge the nature of the medical risk can be better quantified and balanced," Justice Kennedy writes.

He noted, "The prohibition in the act would be unconstitutional, under precedents we assume to be controlling, if it subjected women to significant health risks."

That means you wait until

(a) a doctor performs an abortion that some rat in the hospital alleges was illegal, to the local police or prosecutor or pro-misogyny brigade, or to hospital authorities who then, out of an excess of ass-covering zeal, report it to the local police or prosecutor themselves, and the doctor is charged; or

(b) a woman who is unable to find a doctor to provide her with medical care suitable to her needs suffers an adverse effect as a result - damage to reproductive organs, stroke, post-partum haemorrhage - and scrapes up some money to sue somebody.

Sounds like a good plan, eh?

What's important is how do you feel about the court forcing their "morality" on the rest of us who don't believe in their particular brand of moralistic fairy tales???

Are you for SCOTUS telling a woman what she can do with her body and health?

this is the FIRST Supreme Court decision since Roe v Wade that puts the "life" of the foetus above that of the woman!

This is the camel's nose beneath the tent flap.

I predict the overturning of Roe v Wade within 5 years by this court.

This also means the overturning of many other rulings based on the "right to privacy"...

We have to give up on getting justice from the court for the next decade or so.

And find it more than frightening.

so hard. It is not a very far step to consider all abortions a "partial birth" abortion.

likes of a John Roberts & Sam "Hirohito" Alitio on the court...Two more far right crackpots, who will always side with the far right on any social issue...

The Supreme Court is one justice away from being the furthest right court in history, & that is a scary thought...

Since there is no such medical procedure as a partial birth abortion, and only Intact dilation and extraction which is often used to remove a dead fetus from the womb, how's that going to happen?

Guess the conservative packing of the Supreme Court is working.

I hate these people.

it will all be buried eventually. It seems a government often emulates it's nation and times it doesn't it is most noticeable. This may soon be one of those times.

I personally think court rulings that go against logical and just consensus only magnifies problems of of the generations. A small select bunch of old grumpy lawyers deciding what and what cannot happen with the rest of the population will not serve well in a nation of plurality.


Btw, this in the long way this may be good thing. The endless battles the new deal advocates had with the conservative courts of their day were quite noteworthy from what i remember reading. What don't kill you, often makes you stronger

If the fetus is already dead, then the procedure is not banned. At least that's how I read it (I've skimmed the opinion but obviously not gone into depth on it at this early point.)

What's going to be the problem is if the fetus is technically alive but there's no chance of it surviving. Where's the line between "hurting the woman's health" and "jeopardizing her life?" The procedure is banned in the former, allowed in the latter, but who judges? Does deep depression resulting from carrying a doomed fetus count as life-threatening? How about ecampsia?

or, I forget the technical term for the other, but it's much like a D & C. That way the fetus will dead when it leaves the woman. Both of these procedures are very dangerous for the woman.

On another note, what about ectopic pregnancies? Many times they will remove the embryo from the fallopian tube to keep the tube intact. Would they consider that too a partial "birth" abortion?

So removing an ectopic pregnancy surgically wouldn't fall under the Act, unless, perhaps, the ectopic pregnancy or tube was removed vaginally. (And I don't know jack about reproductive medicine, so I don't know how these surgeries work.)

Hell, under the Act, *and under the decision*, a hysterectomy done for the purpose of terminating the pregnancy or a hysterotomy (basically a c-section of a pre-viable fetus) is legal.

Also, the decision specifically states that the doctor can go in with a needle, euthanize the fetus, then do an intact D&E. That would be legal because the fetus would be dead at the time of extraction. It seems to be a much more cumbersome and possibly dangerous means to the same end.

These people are amazing.

The conclusion that the Act does not impose an undue burden is supported by other considerations. Alternatives
are available to the prohibited procedure. As we have noted, the Act does not proscribe D&E. One District Court
found D&E to have extremely low rates of medical complications. Planned Parenthood, supra, at 1000. Another
indicated D&E was ìgenerally the safest method of abortion during the second trimester.î Carhart, 331 F. Supp.
2d, at 1031; see also Nat. Abortion Federation, supra, at 467ñ468 (explaining that ìxperts testifying for both
sidesî agreed D&E was safe). In addition the Actís prohibition only applies to the delivery of ìa living fetus.î 18 U. S. C. ß1531(b)(1)(A) (2000 ed., Supp. IV). If the intact D&E procedure is truly necessary in some circumstances, it appears likely an injection that kills the fetus is an alternative under the Act that allows the doctor to perform the procedure.

(pages 41-42 of the opinion)

Get a grip.

These people are amazing.

Who "these people", Lone Ranger?

especially with a majority on the Supreme Court. Flame me, if you wish, but I spent 12 years in Catholic school and I know what I am talking about. Their views would put many a Fundie/Evangelical to shame. Don't interfere with life BEFORE conception, never mind after. Bush has loaded the courts. Only those with MONEY and connections, will be able to escape it.

I look at it.

ID&E are used for deceased fetuses...how do those qualify as "live births"?

And doctors who know just what to do.

With this decision the United States of America has effectively become just a little more like the Taliban and all those other misogynistic regimes that we are supposed to be standing up against. I feel like crying.

Just close it DOWN.

having children or don't want to have children, get a tubal NOW. Don't risk an unwanted pregnancy. If you end up wanting a child after the tubal, adopt, there are plenty of children all over the world who need parents to love them.

Welcome to the beginning of the "Handmaiden's Tale"...

American women have no one to blame but themselves for this loss. Many voted for Chimpy and should have realized that he only cares about women if they know their place and are "vessels" for men.

J

normally to be what's called "facially unconstitutional" (which means a law can never be enforced, as opposed to being able to only be enforced in certain situations) there has to be NO case where the law could POSSIBLY be constitutional.

The standard of "large fraction" is a relaxed standard that applies to abortion restrictions only. They created it out of concern for women's health. Thus for an abortion law, if 99% of the time it will be unconstitutionally applied, it will be considered 100% unconstitutional. For a normal law, if it is unconstitutional 99% of the time, it will be upheld as to the 1% of situations only.

"in a large fraction of relevant cases"
and what about the "small fraction" of relevant cases?

BTW--Don't paint all (US)American women with the same broad brush pal. Many of us did NOT vote for him. Many of us actively campaigned against him and for other candidates. I'd also be willing to bet that many, many more men than women voted for him anyway. Don't blame the victims.

http://www.ontheissues.org/Senate/Hillary_Clinton_Abortion.htm

I believe the woman has a right to make these decisions on her own.

This triangulating bullshit, and Hillary isn't the only one who does it, about procedures that are ALREADY only done to protect the life or health of the mother. Has there been a rash of "optional" late term abortions that I have yet to hear about?

Seriously, this is a law looking to solve a problem that DOESN'T exist, and to be frank about it, anyone who supports laws like this are fucking dumbasses. What the fuck is the point of passing laws like this?

unbridled misogyny, nothing less. The same kind that killed off millions of us women during The Burning Times, when we were hunted down, raped on the way to our so-called "trials" for being witches, given Catch-22 no-win hearings, and executed in horrible, horrible, sadistic ways.

Yes, THAT misogyny.

there should be restrictions on the right to have an abortion, since there are restrictions on other rights.

One more reason for me to not vote for Hillary.

to so many dark skin Iraqis into the country!

HahaHa!

Supreme Court saves America!

Source: MSNBC.COM

Headline only has been posted.

Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/

---

Story not posted yet; will post as soon as info. becomes available on website.

Check out americablog.com
It's the lead post from Joe and I hope he's wrong, but I fear he's not.

"BREAKING NEWS" From Reuters:

A closely divided U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the first nationwide ban on a specific abortion procedure, restricting abortion rights in a ruling on one of the nation's most divisive and politically charged issues.

By a 5-4 vote, the high court rejected arguments challenging on various grounds the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act that President George W. Bush signed into law in 2003 after its approval by the Republican-led U.S. Congress.

Joe's coments:

Obviously need more details, but this looks like a victory for the theocrats. They've got the Supreme Court they want now -- and they won't stop here.
Yes, this means a woman's right to choose is in peril.
That's the dream of Bush, his Republican party and the theocrats who support them.

Can't argue with that.

and pack the court with liberals. Take a lesson from FDR. On the other hand, elect Dems put more liberals on the court when others retire.

You know who you are.

of Alito and Roberts. Thanks SOOOOOO much!!

How COULD they allow Alito and Roberts to be placed on the Supreme Court with so little fight? Where were the filibusters to save our nation?

fuck the courts

Save the courts. Vote Democratic.

THIS is why winning
in 2004 was so important!!

Great News!


:grr:

but I'm not. This was always why 2000 was so important. This is how one man can do so much damage not just in the present, but for many decades to come. Perhaps forever. His cronies delivered for him, didn't they? Did anyone doubt they would?

Here we go again.

Sheesh.

This is only one of the reasons why the Democrats MUST win in 2008

the SCOTUS apparently also said this procedure "does not violate a woman's constitutional right to an abortion." thereby reaffirming that a woman indeed does have a constitutional right to an abortion.

The so-called "partial birth abortion" is not even a true medical procedure. In fact, this term is in reality a political term. When something akin to the PBA is used, it is extremely rare.

To me, this ruling would in fact affirm that the 99.9999% of abortions performed are constitutionally legal. Let's not be too true to our liberal selves by complaining too loudly about the other .0001% that we didn't get with this ruling.

From the AP: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/S/SCOTUS_ABORTION?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=HOME

""Today's decision is alarming," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in dissent. She said the ruling "refuses to take ... seriously" previous Supreme Court decisions on abortion.

Ginsburg said the latest decision "tolerates, indeed applauds, federal intervention to ban nationwide a procedure found necessary and proper in certain cases by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists."

She was joined by Justices Stephen Breyer, David Souter and John Paul Stevens."

The way I read it isn't that 99% are Constitutionally legal/protected because that wasn't what they ruled on...it was the procedure used that was addressed. To me, that's a "NEXT!" cue for the anti-abortion crowd. No doubt, they've revved up their maxi-blast emails and robocalls soliciting for money to hand SCOTUS the next case on procedures in very short order.

"No exception for the health of the mother" is a radical departure from all previous Supreme Court decisions. This strongly implies a willingness to overturn Roe v Wade among the five. Scalia and Thomas said so, categorically, in their separate opinion siding with the majority.

The ruling may not "violate a woman's constitutional right to an abortion" but it does violate her constitutional right to LIVE! How is it constitutional to take away a woman's right to do everything possible to save her own life? An unborn fetus has a right to live, but the woman whose body it resides in doesn't? :wtf:

So-called "partial birth abortions" are not done for convenience. A woman doesn't suddenly change her mind after 8 months of pregnancy. They're done for medical reasons and the SCOTUS has NO RIGHT to tell ANY woman that she can't have a medical procedure to SAVE HER OWN LIFE!

That's exactly what this ruling says. If you're pregnant and that pregnancy endangers your health or your life, too bad. As a woman, you have NO right to live. You have NO right to do everything possible to save your life or protect your health. You are nothing.

To all you bastards who voted for Bush*: FUCK YOU!

To all you idiots who didn't bother to vote and/or said it didn't matter who was elected because they were all the same: FUCK YOU!

To all you spineless Democrats who didn't bother to filibuster the wingnut assholes he put on the bench: FUCK YOU!

Hey RWers ... sooner or later, this decision is going to come back and bite you in the ass because eventually, someone YOU love is going to have her life placed in danger because of a pregnancy ... and you can pat yourselves on the back when she dies!

:grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr:

Fuck all of them! Especially keeping the powder dry over Roberts and Alito....members of the American Taliban.

The RWers have no regard for a woman's life, unless it is someone they know personally!

Fuck THE LOT of Them!!!:argh:

:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

And we have a new administration, will DOJ allow arrest warrants to take place for these bastards?

Catholics are about 24% of US population -- http://www.adherents.com/rel_USA.html#Pew_branches

Scalia, Roberts, Alito and Kennedy are Catholics, and I believe that Thomas was raised a Catholic and is now an Evangelical. That is 4 out of 9 -- more than 40% -- a disproportionate representation, and I believe that it is no accident. The religious persuasion of these justices is like a code for their views on abortion. If only they supported the Pope's views on the death penalty and war as they do his view on women's rights and abortion. Birth control is the next item on their list. Forget it women -- back to the stone age for us.

How many children do Scalia, Roberts, Alito and Kennedy have among them? 16 I do believe, although Scalia seems to have been the most diligent . . . . . . . .

Antonin Scalia, Associate Justice, was born in Trenton, New Jersey, March 11, 1936.He married Maureen McCarthy and has nine children - Ann Forrest, Eugene, John Francis, Catherine Elisabeth, Mary Clare, Paul David, Matthew, Christopher James, and MargaretJane.
http://www.supremecourtus.gov/about/biographiescurrent.pdf

Samuel Anthony Alito, Jr., Associate Justice, was born in Trenton, New Jersey, April 1, 1950. He married Martha-Ann Bomgardner in 1985, and has two children -Philip and Laura.
http://www.supremecourtus.gov/about/biographiescurrent.pdf

John G. Roberts, Jr., Chief Justice of the United States, was born in Buffalo, New York, January 27, 1955. He married Jane Marie Sullivan in 1996 and they have two children - Josephine and John.
http://www.supremecourtus.gov/about/biographiescurrent.pdf

Anthony M. Kennedy, Associate Justice, was born in Sacramento, California, July 23, 1936. He married Mary Davis and has three children.
http://www.supremecourtus.gov/about/biographiescurrent.pdf

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Associate Justice, was born in Brooklyn, New York, March 15, 1933. She married Martin D. Ginsburg in 1954, and has a daughter, Jane, and a son, James.
http://www.supremecourtus.gov/about/biographiescurrent.pdf

Stephen G. Breyer, Associate Justice, was born in San Francisco, California, August 15, 1938. He married Joanna Hare in 1967, and has three children - Chloe, Nell, and Michael.
http://www.supremecourtus.gov/about/biographiescurrent.pdf

Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice, was born in the Pin Point community of Georgia near Savannah June 23, 1948. He married Virginia Lamp in 1987 and has one child, JamalAdeen, by a previous marriage.
http://www.supremecourtus.gov/about/biographiescurrent.pdf



John Paul Stevens, Associate Justice, was born in Chicago, Illinois, April 20, 1920.He married Maryan Mulholland, and has four children - John Joseph (deceased), Kathryn, Elizabeth Jane, and Susan Roberta.

http://www.supremecourtus.gov/about/biographiescurrent.pdf

Souter -- unmarried -- no children reported.

that Scalia goes to....it's some crazy Opus Dei pushing church in DC....I read an article about it maybe a year ago. It said that Brownback has joined it as well.

I can't tell you how many Catholics I know who had the procedure. And take birth control pills too. Most Catholics I know mind their own business.

Actual, REAL doctors testified to the necessity of this procedure in specific instances.

And don't you love how Kennedy said it would not be "unconstitutional in a large fraction of relevant cases" - so, he recognizes that some women WILL NEED this procedure, but fuck them, those women and their families can just suffer, maybe die.

This is a WOMAN HATING court.

fascist regime.

I know it's been said, but it can't be repeated enough -- elections matter, and decisions like this show that they have and will impact people's lives (as if Iraq and Katrina didn't do that already).

We all have to do everything in our power to make sure that 2008 is about the issues. Not about John Edwards' haircut, whether the flowers in Hillary Clinton's announcement video were real or fake, or who David Geffen likes most. When Americans are distracted, people like George Bush become President -- and THAT matters.

46 million abortions happen around the world annually with nearly half estimated to be "unsafe" (ie, "back alley") by medical standards. Criminalizing these procedures does nothing to eliminate them, you simply force the hand of millions of frightened young women. Young women who would be subject to societal stigmas for being either a single mother, young mother, or both. Society has caused the problem by creating these stigmas of not only young and/or single motherhood but also young and/or single sexual activity. To which society (conservative society) frowns on the use of contraceptives and other methods of birth control. The entire sexually developing pocket of society are offered only one recourse by conservative ordinance, abstain. An odd request, being that abstinence isn't really in our nature. Nor any animal's nature for that matter, propagation is one of the greatest living instincts. So, conservative ideals leave no alternatives and no solutions to the problem, but instead only further complicate the issue. If allowed, science could be used to make the abortion procedures (a societal necessity) safer and more humane. If the procedures are made criminal, the chances of this diminish.

A societal necessity: What would the world do with an extra 40+ million children every year? What affect do you think that would have on our global infrastructure?

Brave soul.

"What would the world do with an extra 40+ million children every year? What affect do you think that would have on our global infrastructure?"

The earth would suffer even more. But the RWers don't care about that, as long as between now and the time they themselves die (apparently, they are quite alright screwing over their own children), their wallets are fat.

For the zero population growth folks who KNOW that we need to have a negative birth rate for a while, this is a very dark day.

Source: WAPO

The Supreme Court upheld the nationwide ban on a controversial abortion procedure Wednesday, handing abortion opponents the long-awaited victory they expected from a more conservative bench.

The 5-4 ruling said the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act that Congress passed and President Bush signed into law in 2003 does not violate a woman's constitutional right to an abortion.
</snip>



Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/18/AR2007041800710.html?hpid=topnews

---

Using precedence as toilet paper...

Not good, I'll need to study this some more.

Does this mean that the health of the fetus is literally more important than the health of the mother?

And a special tip of the hat to the five fascist clowns on the United States Supreme Court. The Supremes Strike Again!

This isn't about health or medicine or anything like that. This is about putting women in their place. It's a power thing. These uppity women-folks have got to be slapped down - that's what this is about...

of the mother.

My understanding is that in cases where this procedure is indicated, the baby is going to die anyway. All we're doing is protecting people from having to think about the unpleasant image.

important than the life of a woman.

This bans a very broad definition that covers more than one procedure, and does not allow for any judgement on the part of the physician.

the utter devastation that a "bush" SC can do to US!

crap crap crap crap crap crap

How DARE they put themselves about the woman and her doctor. Those assholes.

:banghead: :nuke: :banghead: :nuke: :banghead: :nuke: :banghead: :nuke: :banghead: :nuke: :banghead:

We will have to start this battle all over again and in the meantime, women and their doctors are made out to be criminals. And only wealthy women who can afford to fly out of the country will have their rights protected.

They won't stop here either, expect their side to start kicking up their efforts too.

:grr:

Sonia

They'll continue to get their abortions - partial birth or other - in private doctor's offices in nice suburban strip malls, right next to where they get their cosmetic surgery and fake nails and helmet hair done.

ID&X can be a complex procedure, and there are risks involved in it as in any other surgery, so it is important that the person performing it be trained and competent. If it is used in a late-term abortion (which is not the only situation in which it can be used, as has been said in this thread), there are probably various complications to start with, either with the pregnancy specifically or with the woman's health in another way. It isn't a technique used by every physician or clinic who provides abortions.

This legislation means that fewer doctors will be familiar with the procedure, and that affects everyone, not just wealthy Republicans.

If a doctor were persuaded that this procedure was the best option, in the interests of his/her patient, the doctor would then have to consider the risks of performing it. It is the doctor's medical judgment that would be on trial, in the event of a prosecution: was it "necessary to save the life of a <woman> whose life is endangered by a physical disorder, physical illness, or physical injury, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself"?

A doctor to the rich might feel more secure that prosecution would not ensue; a doctor already known for providing controversial abortions might not, although s/he would presumably be the one with the expertise needed.

Just by the bye, this is something that could affect non-residents of the US too. Because of the rarity of late-term abortions in Canada, expertise in doing them has not developed to the point it has in the US. Women whose fetuses have been diagnosed with conditions incompatible with life relatively late in pregnancy, for example, are commonly referred to clinics in the US for terminations (at the expense of their provincial health plans, of course).

If prosecution chill settles on the medical profession in the US, a small number of Cdn women may not get the medical treatment most appropriate for them.

And rich Republican women might also find themselves without access to the medical treatment most appropriate for them, whether because of prosecution chill directly or because of the side effect of reducing the number of providers competent to use the procedure.

And we can't afford to lose in 2008; defeat isn't an option.

Keep this in mind.

...

Teamwork requires one to compromise (communicate, cooperate (e.g., assist), act unselfishly, etc.), sometimes trading issue-for-issue.

(And teamwork is foundational to a closer, deeper relationship.)

...

(A miscellaneous addition.)

"There is no fate, there is only nature."

"Swift like the wind..."

The opponents of the act "have not demonstrated that the Act would be unconstitutional in a large fraction of relevant cases," Justice
Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion.

The ENSLAVEMENT OF WOMEN by the forces of Big-Brother Government and Big-Brother Religion has begun! God help us all!

:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

:nuke:

...when we are quite willing to say that it's okay to sacrifice the mother in such a way. This is a very hypocritical statement we are making to the world!

story, Handmaiden's Tale. this is scary shit! :scared:

her poetry stinks, too.

and her prose poetry really did suck. I've never read any of her novels.

Remember that next election. More of those liberal judges will be retiring soon.

thus spake Harry Blackmun, dissenting from the Webster decision.

Brrrrrrrr! :scared:

No doubt this will embolden anti-choice domestic terrorists protesters to start hitting clinics again. :grr:

It was new to me, so thanks.

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Webster_v._Reproductive_Health_Services/Concurrence-dissent_Blackmun

JUSTICE BLACKMUN, with whom JUSTICE BRENNAN and JUSTICE MARSHALL join, concurring in part and dissenting in part.

Today, Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), and the fundamental constitutional right of women to decide whether to terminate a pregnancy, survive, but are not secure. Although the Court extricates itself from this case without making a single, even incremental, change in the law of abortion, the plurality and JUSTICE SCALIA would overrule Roe (the first silently, the other explicitly) and would return to the States virtually unfettered authority to control the quintessentially intimate, personal, and life-directing decision whether to carry a fetus to term. Although today, no less than yesterday, the Constitution and the decisions of this Court prohibit a State from enacting laws that inhibit women from the meaningful exercise of that right, a plurality of this Court implicitly invites every state legislature to enact more and more restrictive abortion regulations in order to provoke more and more test cases, in the hope that, sometime down the line, the Court will return the law of procreative freedom to the severe limitations that generally prevailed in this country before January 22, 1973. Never in my memory has a plurality announced a judgment of this Court that so foments disregard for the law and for our standing decisions.

Nor in my memory has a plurality gone about its business in such a deceptive fashion. At every level of its review, from its effort to read the real meaning out of the Missouri statute to its intended evisceration of precedents and its deafening silence about the constitutional protections that it would jettison, the plurality obscures the portent of its analysis. With feigned restraint, the plurality announces that its analysis leaves Roe "undisturbed," albeit "modif(ied) and narrow(ed)." Ante at 521. But this disclaimer is totally meaningless. The plurality opinion is filled with winks, and nods, and knowing glances to those who would do away with Roe explicitly, but turns a stone face to anyone in search of what the plurality conceives as the scope of a woman's right under the Due Process Clause to terminate a pregnancy free from the coercive and brooding influence of the State. The simple truth is that Roe would not survive the plurality's analysis, and that the plurality provides no substitute for Roe's protective umbrella.

I fear for the future. I fear for the liberty and equality of the millions of women who have lived and come of age in the 16 years since Roe was decided. I fear for the integrity of, and public esteem for, this Court.

I dissent.

(and that's just his introduction)

Substitute "majority" for "plurality", and it applies pretty much word for word, eh?

What is described in the legislation isn't specific to just one recognized procedure, or even a stage of pregnancy.

It could be used to criminalize gyns that perform abortions at 12 weeks.

Just wait until someone they know needs this procedure!

endanger the lives of women seeking an abortion even in the first trimester.

What's next, veils?

The ReThuglican Party makes public cries about how much they believe in limited/small Government.:eyes:

Yet I have never seen so much Big Brother Controlling Eyes-Looking-Over-Your-Shoulder-
Dictating-EVERYTHING-That A-Person-Does since the Bush Regime got into Office.

Hell, Poppy didn't quite get to accomplish his New World Order
so he's going to make Damn Sure By George that Jr. will do it! :sarcasm:
I fear this is just a start. Wow, the beginning of the Control of Women's Bodies, now.:wow:

Sounds like an episode of a "Back To The Past" movie. What is this, the Fucking Middle Ages??? :mad:

Here's my problem.

"The 5-4 ruling said the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act that Congress passed and
President Bush signed into law in 2003 does not violate a woman's constitutional right to an abortion."

We do not have a constitutional right to an abortion. We have the consitutional right to privacy and therefore have laws upheld by Supreme Court ruling that permit us the legal ability to choose a first trimester abortion as part of our medical care.

In this case, the comment from the article should state properly that the Supreme Court has ruled that a law prohibiting the PBX medical procedure does not violate a woman's constitutional right to privacy. -- And then try to defend that assholes!

Sorry, I'm just pissed that an extremely rare medical procedure has been twisted into a wedge by the far right.

"This subsection does not apply to a partial-birth abortion that is necessary to save the life of a mother whose life is endangered by a physical disorder, physical illness, or physical injury, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself."

And be sure to buy a load for the doctors who are the ones who will have to interpret and apply this legislation in practice.

If I were a doctor who was of the opinion that an abortion using the prohibited technique was "necessary to save the life of a mother whose life is endangered by a physical disorder, physical illness, or physical injury, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself", I might just think twice when I remembered that there was a rabid herd of wolves looking over my shoulder just slavering at the possibility of prosecuting someone who overstepped their line.

Oh, and let's not forget what your Supreme Court once said -- even if we limit our considerations to post-"viability" terminations, which the legislation apparently does not do:

For the stage subsequent to viability, the State in promoting its interest in the potentiality of human life may, if it chooses, regulate, and even proscribe, abortion except where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother.

Someone really does need to tell your law-makers that a woman who has not had a child is not a mother ...

Yes, you read that right. What a stupid thing to tie the SCOTUS up with and have them rule on. How about they deal with real issues, real things, like, say, habeas corpus rather than made up boogeyman things that are rarer than rare?

Good for her, because this procedure is done rarely and in cases where the life of the mother is in danger. No doubt the Repukes will try to build on this. Kennedy is not as reliable here as O'Connor was. We must win in 2008!

I still wonder if Old America can ever be fully resuscitated.

It's a RW made-up name that's not mentioned in ANY of the medical literature.

It's a political term, not a medical one.

...democracy and freedome would have experienced a partial birth abortion.

The Supreme Court of the US has not only endorsed the theft of the US Presidency by an AWOL cokehead, and facilatated the murder of over 1/2 million in Iraq, and allowed the deteroriation of human rights such as habeus corpus, and prohibitions on the use of torture, but now have outdone themselves in invading the sancturary of a womans body, and are as guilty of rape as the most reprehensible criminals.

I'm alarmed at the lack of media coverage. As of right now, a quick search yielded no news on the net other than from Yahoo.

Pls K&R this thread.

GONZALES, ATTORNEY GENERAL v. CARHART et al.

certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the eighth circuit

Argued November 8, 2006--Decided April 18, 2007 No. 05-380.*

Following this Court's Stenberg v. Carhart, 530 U. S. 914, decision that Nebraska's "partial birth abortion" statute violated the Federal Constitution, as interpreted in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U. S. 833, and Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113, Congress passed the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 (Act) to proscribe a particular method of ending fetal life in the later stages of pregnancy. The Act does not regulate the most common abortion procedures used in the first trimester of pregnancy, when the vast majority of abortions take place. In the usual second-trimester procedure, "dilation and evacuation" (D&E), the doctor dilates the cervix and then inserts surgical instruments into the uterus and maneuvers them to grab the fetus and pull it back through the cervix and vagina. The fetus is usually ripped apart as it is removed, and the doctor may take 10 to 15 passes to remove it in its entirety. The procedure that prompted the federal Act and various state statutes, including Nebraska's, is a variation of the standard D&E, and is herein referred to as "intact D&E." The main difference between the two procedures is that in intact D&E a doctor extracts the fetus intact or largely intact with only a few passes, pulling out its entire body instead of ripping it apart. In order to allow the head to pass through the cervix, the doctor typically pierces or crushes the skull.

The Act responded to Stenberg in two ways. First, Congress found that unlike this Court in Stenberg, it was not required to accept the District Court's factual findings, and that that there was a moral, medical, and ethical consensus that partial-birth abortion is a gruesome and inhumane procedure that is never medically necessary and should be prohibited. Second, the Act's language differs from that of the Nebraska statute struck down in Stenberg. Among other things, the Act prohibits "knowingly perform a partial-birth abortion ... that is necessary to save the life of a mother," 18 U. S. C. §1531(a). It defines "partial-birth abortion," §1531(b)(1), as a procedure in which the doctor: "(A) deliberately and intentionally vaginally delivers a living fetus until, in the case of a head-first presentation, the entire fetal head is outside the body ... , or, in the case of breech presentation, any part of the fetal trunk past the navel is outside the body ... , for the purpose of performing an overt act that the person knows will kill the partially delivered living fetus"; and "(B) performs the overt act, other than completion of delivery, that kills the fetus."

In No. 05-380, respondent abortion doctors challenged the Act's constitutionality on its face, and the Federal District Court granted a permanent injunction prohibiting petitioner Attorney General from enforcing the Act in all cases but those in which there was no dispute the fetus was viable. The court found the Act unconstitutional because it (1) lacked an exception allowing the prohibited procedure where necessary for the mother's health and (2) covered not merely intact D&E but also other D&Es. Affirming, the Eighth Circuit found that a lack of consensus existed in the medical community as to the banned procedure's necessity, and thus Stenberg required legislatures to err on the side of protecting women's health by including a health exception. In No. 05-1382, respondent abortion advocacy groups brought suit challenging the Act. The District Court enjoined the Attorney General from enforcing the Act, concluding it was unconstitutional on its face because it (1) unduly burdened a woman's ability to choose a second-trimester abortion, (2) was too vague, and (3) lacked a health exception as required by Stenberg. The Ninth Circuit agreed and affirmed.
Held: Respondents have not demonstrated that the Act, as a facial matter, is void for vagueness, or that it imposes an undue burden on a woman's right to abortion based on its overbreadth or lack of a health exception. Pp. 14-39.

1. The Casey Court reaffirmed what it termed Roe's three-part "essential holding": First, a woman has the right to choose to have an abortion before fetal viability and to obtain it without undue interference from the State. Second, the State has the power to restrict abortions after viability, if the law contains exceptions for pregnancies endangering the woman's life or health. And third, the State has legitimate interests from the pregnancy's outset in protecting the health of the woman and the life of the fetus that may become a child. 505 U. S., at 846. Though all three are implicated here, it is the third that requires the most extended discussion. In deciding whether the Act furthers the Government's legitimate interest in protecting fetal life, the Court assumes, inter alia, that an undue burden on the previability abortion right exists if a regulation's "purpose or effect is to place a substantial obstacle in the path," id., at 878, but that "egulations which do no more than create a structural mechanism by which the State ... may express profound respect for the life of the unborn are permitted, if they are not a substantial obstacle to the woman's exercise of the right to choose," id., at 877. Casey struck a balance that was central to its holding, and the Court applies Casey's standard here. A central premise of Casey's joint opinion--that the government has a legitimate, substantial interest in preserving and promoting fetal life--would be repudiated were the Court now to affirm the judgments below. Pp. 14-16.

2. The Act, on its face, is not void for vagueness and does not impose an undue burden from any overbreadth. Pp. 16-26.

(a) The Act's text demonstrates that it regulates and proscribes performing the intact D&E procedure. First, since the doctor must "vaginally delive a living fetus," §1531(b)(1)(A), the Act does not restrict abortions involving delivery of an expired fetus or those not involving vaginal delivery, e.g., hysterotomy or hysterectomy. And it applies both previability and postviability because, by common understanding and scientific terminology, a fetus is a living organism within the womb, whether or not it is viable outside the womb. Second, because the Act requires the living fetus to be delivered to a specific anatomical landmark depending on the fetus' presentation, ibid., an abortion not involving such partial delivery is permitted. Third, because the doctor must perform an "overt act, other than completion of delivery, that kills the partially delivered fetus," §1531(b)(1)(B), the "overt act" must be separate from delivery. It must also occur after delivery to an anatomical landmark, since killing "the partially delivered" fetus, when read in context, refers to a fetus that has been so delivered, ibid. Fourth, given the Act's scienter requirements, delivery of a living fetus past an anatomical landmark by accident or inadvertence is not a crime because it is not "deliberat and intentiona, §1531(b)(1)(A). Nor is such a delivery prohibited if the fetus been delivered "for the purpose of performing an overt act that the knows will kill ." Ibid. Pp. 16-18.

(b) The Act is not unconstitutionally vague on its face. It satisfies both requirements of the void-for-vagueness doctrine. First, it provides doctors "of ordinary intelligence a reasonable opportunity to know what is prohibited," Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U. S. 104, 108, setting forth "relatively clear guidelines as to prohibited conduct" and providing "objective criteria" to evaluate whether a doctor has performed a prohibited procedure, Posters 'N' Things, Ltd. v. United States, 511 U. S. 513, 525-526. Second, it does not encourage arbitrary or discriminatory enforcement. Kolender v. Lawson, 461 U. S. 352, 357. Its anatomical landmarks "establish minimal guidelines to govern law enforcement," Smith v. Goguen, 415 U. S. 566, 574, and its scienter requirements narrow the scope of its prohibition and limit prosecutorial discretion, see Kolender, supra, at 358. Respondents' arbitrary enforcement arguments, furthermore, are somewhat speculative, since this is a preenforcement challenge. Pp. 18-20.

(c) The Court rejects respondents' argument that the Act imposes an undue burden, as a facial matter, because its restrictions on second-trimester abortions are too broad. Pp. 20-26.

(i) The Act's text discloses that it prohibits a doctor from intentionally performing an intact D&E. Its dual prohibitions correspond with the steps generally undertaken in this procedure: The doctor (1) delivers the fetus until its head lodges in the cervix, usually past the anatomical landmark for a breech presentation, see §1531(b)(1)(A), and (2) proceeds to the overt act of piercing or crushing the fetal skull after the partial delivery, see §1531(b)(1)(B). The Act's scienter requirements limit its reach to those physicians who carry out the intact D&E, with the intent to undertake both steps at the outset. The Act excludes most D&Es in which the doctor intends to remove the fetus in pieces from the outset. This interpretation is confirmed by comparing the Act with the Nebraska statute in Stenberg. There, the Court concluded that the statute encompassed D&E, which "often involve(s) a physician pulling a 'substantial portion' of a still living fetus ... , say, an arm or leg, into the vagina prior to the death of the fetus," 530 U. S., at 939, and rejected the Nebraska Attorney General's limiting interpretation that the statute's reference to a "procedure" that "kill(s) the unborn child" was to a distinct procedure, not to the abortion procedure as a whole, id., at 943. It is apparent Congress responded to these concerns because the Act adopts the phrase "delivers a living fetus," 18 U. S. C. §1531(b)(1)(A), instead of " 'delivering ... a living unborn child, or a substantial portion thereof,' " 530 U. S., at 938, thereby targeting extraction of an entire fetus rather than removal of fetal pieces; identifies specific anatomical landmarks to which the fetus must be partially delivered, §1531(b)(1)(A), thereby clarifying that the removal of a small portion of the fetus is not prohibited; requires the fetus to be delivered so that it is partially "outside the body," §1531(b)(1)(A), thereby establishing that delivering a substantial portion of the fetus into the vagina would not subject a doctor to criminal sanctions; and adds the overt-act requirement, §1531(b)(1), thereby making the distinction the Nebraska statute failed to draw (but the Nebraska Attorney General advanced). Finally, the canon of constitutional avoidance, see, e.g., Edward J. DeBartolo Corp. v. Florida Gulf Coast Building & Constr. Trades Council, 485 U. S. 568, 575, extinguishes any lingering doubt. Interpreting the Act not to prohibit standard D&E is the most reasonable reading and understanding of its terms. Pp. 20-24.

(ii) Respondents' contrary arguments are unavailing. The contention that any D&E may result in the delivery of a living fetus beyond the Act's anatomical landmarks because doctors cannot predict the amount the cervix will dilate before the procedure does not take account of the Act's intent requirements, which preclude liability for an accidental intact D&E. The evidence supports the legislative determination that an intact delivery is almost always a conscious choice rather than a happenstance, belying any claim that a standard D&E cannot be performed without intending or foreseeing an intact D&E. That many doctors begin every D&E with the objective of removing the fetus as intact as possible based on their belief that this is safer does not prove, as respondents suggest, that every D&E might violate the Act, thereby imposing an undue burden. It demonstrates only that those doctors must adjust their conduct to the law by not attempting to deliver the fetus to an anatomical landmark. Respondents have not shown that requiring doctors to intend dismemberment before such a delivery will prohibit the vast majority of D&E abortions. Pp. 24-26.

3. The Act, measured by its text in this facial attack, does not impose a "substantial obstacle" to late-term, but previability, abortions, as prohibited by the Casey plurality, 505 U. S., at 878. Pp. 26-37.

(a) The contention that the Act's congressional purpose was to create such an obstacle is rejected. The Act's stated purposes are protecting innocent human life from a brutal and inhumane procedure and protecting the medical community's ethics and reputation. The government undoubtedly "has an interest in protecting the integrity and ethics of the medical profession." Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U. S. 702, 731. Moreover, Casey reaffirmed that the government may use its voice and its regulatory authority to show its profound respect for the life within the woman. See, e.g., 505 U. S., at 873. The Act's ban on abortions involving partial delivery of a living fetus furthers the Government's objectives. Congress determined that such abortions are similar to the killing of a newborn infant. This Court has confirmed the validity of drawing boundaries to prevent practices that extinguish life and are close to actions that are condemned. Glucksberg, supra, at 732-735, and n. 23. The Act also recognizes that respect for human life finds an ultimate expression in a mother's love for her child. Whether to have an abortion requires a difficult and painful moral decision, Casey, 505 U. S., at 852-853, which some women come to regret. In a decision so fraught with emotional consequence, some doctors may prefer not to disclose precise details of the abortion procedure to be used. It is, however, precisely this lack of information that is of legitimate concern to the State. Id., at 873. The State's interest in respect for life is advanced by the dialogue that better informs the political and legal systems, the medical profession, expectant mothers, and society as a whole of the consequences that follow from a decision to elect a late-term abortion. The objection that the Act accomplishes little because the standard D&E is in some respects as brutal, if not more, than intact D&E, is unpersuasive. It was reasonable for Congress to think that partial-birth abortion, more than standard D&E, undermines the public's perception of the doctor's appropriate role during delivery, and perverts the birth process. Pp. 26-30.

(b) The Act's failure to allow the banned procedure's use where " 'necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for preservation of the health,' " Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New Eng., 546 U. S. 320, 327-328, does not have the effect of imposing an unconstitutional burden on the abortion right. The Court assumes the Act's prohibition would be unconstitutional, under controlling precedents, if it "subject to significant health risks." Id., at 328. Whether the Act creates such risks was, however, a contested factual question below: The evidence presented in the trial courts and before Congress demonstrates both sides have medical support for their positions. The Court's precedents instruct that the Act can survive facial attack when this medical uncertainty persists. See, e.g., Kansas v. Hendricks, 521 U. S. 346, 360, n. 3. This traditional rule is consistent with Casey, which confirms both that the State has an interest in promoting respect for human life at all stages in the pregnancy, and that abortion doctors should be treated the same as other doctors. Medical uncertainty does not foreclose the exercise of legislative power in the abortion context any more than it does in other contexts. Other considerations also support the Court's conclusion, including the fact that safe alternatives to the prohibited procedure, such as D&E, are available. In addition, if intact D&E is truly necessary in some circumstances, a prior injection to kill the fetus allows a doctor to perform the procedure, given that the Act's prohibition only applies to the delivery of "a living fetus," 18 U. S. C. §1531(b)(1)(A). Planned Parenthood of Central Mo. v. Danforth, 428 U. S. 52, 77-79, distinguished. The Court rejects certain of the parties' arguments. On the one hand, the Attorney General's contention that the Act should be upheld based on the congressional findings alone fails because some of the Act's recitations are factually incorrect and some of the important findings have been superseded. Also unavailing, however, is respondents' contention that an abortion regulation must contain a health exception if "substantial medical authority supports the proposition that banning a particular procedure could endanger women's health, " Stenberg, 530 U. S., at 938. Interpreting Stenberg as leaving no margin for legislative error in the face of medical uncertainty is too exacting a standard. Marginal safety considerations, including the balance of risks, are within the legislative competence where, as here, the regulation is rational and pursues legitimate ends, and standard, safe medical options are available. Pp. 31-37.

4. These facial attacks should not have been entertained in the first instance. In these circumstances the proper means to consider exceptions is by as-applied challenge. Cf. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc. v. Federal Election Comm'n, 546 U. S. ___, ___. This is the proper manner to protect the woman's health if it can be shown that in discrete and well-defined instances a condition has or is likely to occur in which the procedure prohibited by the Act must be used. No as-applied challenge need be brought if the Act's prohibition threatens a woman's life, because the Act already contains a life exception. 18 U. S. C. §1531(a). Pp. 37-39.
No. 05-380, 413 F. 3d 791; 05-1382, 435 F. 3d 1163, reversed.

Kennedy, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J., and Scalia, Thomas, and Alito, JJ., joined. Thomas, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which Scalia, J., joined. Ginsburg, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Stevens, Souter, and Breyer, JJ., joined.

Pres can make things right!!

and I mean a BIG

AND

what's the deal with one of the Supreme Court Justices (I think, have to look for a link)
that said in part something like:

"The Government has an interest in Fetal Life"

:wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf:

For what???

I heard this on a local News Station last night!!!

Sounds pretty sick to me and pretty weird to say the least.:wow:

Did anyone else hear that one?

On EDIT: Here it is:

>>>The majority (Conservative, emphasis mine) opinion written by Justice Anthony Kennedy rejected the argument the law must be struck down because it imposed an undue burden on a woman's right to abortion, that it was too vague or broad and it failed to provide an exception for abortions to protect the health of a pregnant woman.

"The government has a legitimate and substantial interest in preserving and promoting fetal life," Kennedy wrote in the 39-page opinion. He said the law would reduce the number of late-term abortions.<<<

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSWBT00684520070419

Now they want our Kids!

because it actually comes from Roe v. Wade.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0410_0113_ZO.html

From Blackmun:

Three reasons have been advanced to explain historically the enactment of criminal abortion laws in the 19th century and to justify their continued existence.

... The third reason is the State's interest -- some phrase it in terms of duty -- in protecting prenatal life. Some of the argument for this justification rests on the theory that a new human life is present from the moment of conception. The State's interest and general obligation to protect life then extends, it is argued, to prenatal life. Only when the life of the pregnant mother herself is at stake, balanced against the life she carries within her, should the interest of the embryo or fetus not prevail. Logically, of course, a legitimate state interest in this area need not stand or fall on acceptance of the belief that life begins at conception or at some other point prior to live birth. In assessing the State's interest, recognition may be given to the less rigid claim that as long as at least potential life is involved, the State may assert interests beyond the protection of the pregnant woman alone.

Alrighty then, what IS this interest?

The reason we need to know is that once an individual establishes that a law interferes with the exercise of a right or freedom, the state (in the generic sense; this is how it works in Canada too, e.g.) has to show that it has an interest that it is advancing by interfering in the exercise of that right or freedom.

If a law prohibited the eating of pizza for breakfast, the state would have to show that eating pizza for breakfast causes the trains to run late, or something.

The state then has to justify the interference. I'm most familiar with the Canadian tests, so I'll use them just for demonstration purposes (the US tests vary somewhat, but the principles are similar): the interest being advanced is important ("compelling", at the top of the scale), the interference with the exercise of the right or freedom is rationally connected and proportionate to the advancement of the interest, the interference is the least possible in order to achieve that goal, etc.

But it all starts with identifying and proving the state's interest.

On the basis of elements such as these, appellant and some amici argue that the woman's right is absolute and that she is entitled to terminate her pregnancy at whatever time, in whatever way, and for whatever reason she alone chooses. With this we do not agree. Appellant's arguments that Texas either has no valid interest at all in regulating the abortion decision, or no interest strong enough to support any limitation upon the woman's sole determination, are unpersuasive. The Court's decisions recognizing a right of privacy also acknowledge that some state regulation in areas protected by that right is appropriate. As noted above, a State may properly assert important interests in safeguarding health, in maintaining medical standards, and in protecting potential life. At some point in pregnancy, these respective interests become sufficiently compelling to sustain regulation of the factors that govern the abortion decision.

Can the state just say it has an interest in controlling what I eat for breakfast? If not, why can it just say it has an interest in protecting "prenatal life"?

Without knowing *what* that interest IS, how can we tell how important it is, or how any particular law is meant to advance that interest, or how any interference with an individual right or freedom is rationally connected to that interest, or whether any such interference is proportionate to the state's interest??

And then there's this utter nonsense:

With respect to the State's important and legitimate interest in potential life, the "compelling" point is at viability. This is so because the fetus then presumably has the capability of meaningful life outside the mother's womb. State regulation protective of fetal life after viability thus has both logical and biological justifications. If the State is interested in protecting fetal life after viability, it may go so far as to proscribe abortion during that period, except when it is necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother.

Why on earth is the "compelling" point at viability?? If the state's interest is in perpetuating its population, for instance, what does (hypothetical, always remember) viability have to do with that? How can we know whether the state's interest is compelling if we don't know what it is?

To summarize and to repeat:

... (c) For the stage subsequent to viability, the State in promoting its interest in the potentiality of human life may, if it chooses, regulate, and even proscribe, abortion except where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother.

... This holding, we feel, is consistent with the relative weights of the respective interests involved, with the lessons and examples of medical and legal history, with the lenity of the common law, and with the demands of the profound problems of the present day. The decision leaves the State free to place increasing restrictions on abortion as the period of pregnancy lengthens, so long as those restrictions are tailored to the recognized state interests.

The state's interest in "protecting prenatal life", or in "the potentiality of human life" -- which are not even the same thing, and the second of which doesn't even make sense -- is the lynchpin of the whole thing. Pull it out, and the whole construct collapses.

If you ask me, it was never there in the first place. Texas simply never established what its interest was in women's pregnancies.


In Canada, the criminal law provision on abortion was struck down in 1988 (by then, nobody was paying much attention to it) on an appeal of Dr. Henry Morgentaler's conviction. The decision was based on very different grounds from the US decision. Here, it was the procedure for authorizing abortions that was challenged. A woman's need for an abortion had to be certified by a hospital committee (rubber-stamping was the rule by 1988, but practice was uneven across the country). It was that procedure that was found to violate women's rights to life, liberty and security of the person in a way that was not in accordance of the rules of fundamental justice (which include, e.g., due process).

What happened then was nothing. The federal govt could have re-legislated, in an attempt to create a procedure that did comply with the rules, but it didn't. So we have no law on abortion. Life is just fine.

In point of fact, NO procedure for permitting/deying abortion could ever comply with those rules. Any woman can die, or be harmed, by pregnancy or delivery, unpredictably. So a woman who had been denied an abortion that she just wanted on a whim and who then died of post-partum haemorrhage would have had her right to life violated by the decision to deny the abortion, and there is no way that due process could have been met, since she had done absolutely nothing wrong to deserve a death sentence.

What I'm getting at, though, is that the Supreme Court of Canada decision contains some of the same foolishness as Roe.

Even the estimable former Madam Justice Bertha Wilson wrote:
http://scc.lexum.umontreal.ca/en/1988/1988rcs1-30/1988rcs1-30.html
(her reasons start at p. 161 there, and they should be read by all)

In my view, the primary objective of the impugned legislation must be seen as the protection of the foetus. It undoubtedly has other ancillary objectives, such as the protection of the life and health of pregnant women, but I believe that the main objective advanced to justify a restriction on the pregnant woman's s. 7 right is the protection of the foetus. I think this is a perfectly valid legislative objective.

Why???

And if it is a valid legislative objective, perhaps it could justify legislation prohibiting the selling of tuna with mercury in it -- but how could it justify violating a woman's right to life, liberty and security in such a way that she could DIE?


So yes, your question is the fundamental one. What is the state's interest in a woman's pregnancy?

Unless we have an answer to that, we can't assess the legitimacy of what the state does to advance that interest.