Sept. 28, 2005 – A district court Monday upheld a lower court ruling that lifted a two-year-old ban on certain types of abortions, agreeing that the ban failed to take a woman’s health into account.
Lawyers for the Bush administration immediately asked the Supreme Court to take up the case. The president makes no secret of his opposition to abortion.
In a statement Monday, the Center for Reproductive Rights announced its intention to file a brief asking the Supreme Court to deny the White House request. The group said the failure of the 2003 so-called Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act to protect women’s health is unconstitutional. The group added that the language is overly broad and could lead to a halt on abortions after twelve weeks.
Monday’s Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals decision in Carhart v. Gonzales marks a win for abortion-rights advocates in the first of three major court cases this fall over the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban. Two other cases are scheduled to be argued in federal appellate courts next month.
In 2003, the American Civil Liberties Union, Center for Reproductive Rights and Planned Parenthood successfully battled the full implementation of the measure in three states – New York, Nebraska and California – by challenging the law’s failure to include a provision providing for the protection of a woman’s health.
Yesterday’s decision relied heavily upon that interpretation and a five-year-old Supreme Court ruling, but sidestepped the question of whether the law creates an undue burden on a woman’s right to an abortion.
"There remains no consensus in the medical community as to the safety and medical necessity of the banned procedure," the court said. "In the absence of new evidence which would serve to distinguish this record from the record reviewed by the Supreme Court in Stenberg [v. Carhart], we are bound by the Supreme Court’s conclusion."
A week from the start of its term, the Supreme Court already has one abortion-rights case on the docket, Ayotte v Planned Parenthood of Northern New England. The case brings a New Hampshire parental notification law under court scrutiny.
