Ban on 'Partial Birth' Abortions Challenged in Courts
By LARRY NEUMEISTER, AP
NEW YORK (March 29) - A new federal law banning certain types of abortions is unconstitutional and threatens most late-term abortions, a lawyer for plaintiffs said at the start of one of three trials on the law getting under way Monday.
But the government, in its opening statement, said it would show that a fetus ''can and will feel pain as a result of this procedure.''
The law, signed into law in November by President Bush, is too vague and should be tossed out, plaintiffs' lawyer A. Stephen Hut Jr. said in his opening statement.
Abortion-rights supporters are challenging the first substantial limitation on abortion since the Supreme Court's landmark Roe v. Wade decision.
The law has not been enforced because judges in New York, Lincoln, Neb., and San Francisco agreed to hear evidence in three separate trials without juries before deciding whether it violates the Constitution.
Hut warned that evidence in the trial will include ''very raw stuff'' and that descriptions of surgery were ''not for the faint of heart.''
''To sum up, our evidence will show the court that this act unconstitutionally compromises a woman's right to reproductive choice and it is designed to remove the abortion alternatives,'' Hut told the court.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Sean H. Lane defended the law which he described as an attempt to ban an ''inhumane and gruesome procedure that causes pain to the fetus.''
''Evidence at trial will illuminate that partial birth abortion is never medically necessary and is an inhumane procedure that should be banned,'' Lane said.
He said the law was specific in banning an abortion procedure that kills a ''partially born fetus just inches from birth.''
Judges in the three cities will hear from the National Abortion Federation, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and several doctors that the law was written too broadly and vaguely, and in such a way that it threatens the health of some mothers.
The simultaneous litigation centers on the ban of what lawmakers defined as ''partial-birth'' abortion and what doctors call ''intact dilation and extraction'' - or D&X.
In the procedure, generally performed in the second trimester and occasionally in the third, a fetus is partially delivered and its skull is punctured. An estimated 2,200 to 5,000 such abortions are performed annually in the United States, out of 1.3 million total abortions.
Critics of the law say its language could criminalize more common types of abortion and could be a step toward abolishing abortion. Supporters contend it applies only to a procedure done late in pregnancy that is never necessary to protect the health of the mother.
The Partial-Birth Abortion Act carries a maximum two-year prison term for doctors convicted of performing the procedure. The litigation appears likely to reach the Supreme Court.
The high court struck down a similar Nebraska law almost four years ago because it lacked an exception for procedures done to preserve a woman's health. Anticipating this problem, Congress declared that ''a partial birth abortion is never necessary to preserve the health of a woman'' and is ''outside the standard of medical care.''
The abortion-rights groups disagree, saying that doctors may find themselves with no good alternative to the banned procedure to protect a woman's life or health if problems develop.
The American Medical Association does not encourage use of D&X, but says it should not be banned. The College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says alternatives to D&X usually exist, but that in some circumstances it may be the best procedure.
Opponents of the ban also argue that its language is vague and could be interpreted as covering more common, less controversial procedures, including ''dilation and evacuation.'' Known as D&E, it is the most common method of second-trimester abortion. An estimated 140,000 D&Es take place in the United States annually.
03-29-04 1528EST
Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. |
