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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Amy J who wrote (239364)	7/10/2005 2:15:02 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1577883

Appeals court: Abortion ban unconstitutional BY BUTCH MABIN / Lincoln Journal Star Four federal courts have examined the legality of the 2003 federal Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act, and, as of Friday, four have found the measure unconstitutional. In a ruling released Friday morning, a three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found the act unconstitutional because it failed to allow the procedure to protect a woman's health. Judge Kermit Bye, writing for the panel, said a lack of consensus within the medical community on the necessity of the procedure means it cannot be banned by government. "In effect, we believe when a lack of consensus exists in the medical community, the Constitution requires legislatures to err on the side of protecting women's health by including a health exception," he wrote. Nancy Northrup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, praised the decision in a news release. "Four federal courts have now exposed this deceptive law for what it is — a dangerous ban that not only fails to protect a woman's health, but jeopardizes it," she said. "Congress ignored women's health in passing this law. Fortunately, the Eight Circuit followed the Supreme Court's clear ruling that women's health matters." Meanwhile, Karen Bowling of the Nebraska Family Council, worried about the ruling's larger effect on society. "That the nation would allow women to have this gruesome procedure saddens us," she said. "I think we're heading down the slippery slope of whose life is to be valued. Who's next? Is it the physically challenged or the mentally handicapped?" The ruling affirmed a September 2004 ruling by U.S. District Judge Richard G. Kopf that the act needed a health exception. Kopf also ruled the act was so broadly worded it outlawed most late-term abortions. The appeals court Friday did not address that finding. Federal district trial courts in San Francisco and New York have also struck down the act, signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2003. The U.S. Justice Department has appealed both rulings to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 9th and 2nd circuits. Those courts have not yet ruled on the cases, which are expected to ultimately be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. The act banned a procedure some observers said was similar to a rarely used procedure called dilation and extraction, or D&X. D&X entails delivery of the fetal body outside the mother and then puncturing or collapsing its head. Supporters of the ban said the procedure was not only barbaric, but never necessary to protect women's health. Opponents said the procedure was sometimes the safest available to physicians. They also claimed the ban, as written, outlawed other late-term abortion methods. Challenges to the ban were made in federal courts in Lincoln, San Francisco and New York shortly after Bush signed the act into law. The Nebraska case was filed by the Center for Reproductive Rights on behalf of Bellevue Dr. LeRoy Carhart and three other physicians. Carhart in 1997 challenged a similar Nebraska law banning so-called partial-birth abortions. Kopf in 1998 declared the law unconstitutional, a ruling affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2000. Trial in the Nebraska lawsuit was held in Lincoln last spring. Government attorneys argued Congress, in passing the act, concluded from expert medical testimony that the procedure was not only never medically necessary, but also posed health risks to women. "Congress took a great deal of testimony on this," Anthony Coppolino, special litigation counsel for the Justice Department, told Kopf. "Congress heard both sides and decided it was not necessary to advance the mother's health." Kopf ultimately rejected the claim, as Bye did on Friday. "If one thing is clear from the record in this case, it is that no consensus exists in the medical community," he wrote. Bowling, of the Nebraska Family Council, said Congress determined the procedure was rarely performed to protect women's health. "That (women's health) wasn't the reason the procedure was used," she said. But the national American Civil Liberties Union said Bye's decision showed Congress and the president were willing to jeopardize women's health for political gain. "Today's decision once again affirms that in passing this far-reaching ban on abortions as early as 13 weeks in pregnancy, Congress and the president played political football with the Constitution and women's health," Louise Melling, director of the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, said in a statement. Tim Butz, executive director of the Nebraska ACLU, said he expected the 8th Circuit ruling to be upheld by the Supreme Court. "If a court as conservative as the 8th Circuit finds the law unconstitutional, it's a good chance the Supreme Court will, too," he said. journalstar.com