Posted on 11/09/2006 5:06:25 PM PST by Graybeard58
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The graphic details of a disputed abortion procedure filled the Supreme Court on Wednesday as justices voiced concern with a federal ban on that operation.
Justices brought up uncomfortable images in sharp questions to lawyers on both sides. The issue: whether Congress was within its rights when it banned a procedure opponents call partial-birth abortion, for which there is little hard data and much disagreement.
"Wouldn't the fetus ... suffer a demise in seconds anyway?" Justice John Paul Stevens asked, focusing on the law's ban on how, rather than whether an abortion may be performed.
Solicitor General Paul Clement replied: "Well it may be seconds, it may be hours."
"Do you not agree that it has no chance of surviving, in most cases?" Stevens asked again.
In an intense morning of arguments, lawyers for the Bush administration and supporters of abortion rights gave starkly contrasting views on the practice: A law passed by Congress and signed by President Bush in 2003 labels it gruesome, inhumane and never medically necessary. Supporters argue that such abortions sometimes are the safest for women.
An anti-abortion protester in the audience began shouting midway through the first of two hours of arguments, briefly disrupting the hearing before police dragged him away.
A day after voters defeated abortion restrictions in three states, hundreds of protesters gathered in the rain outside the court. Anti-abortion advocates curled up in the fetal position along the wet sidewalk, forcing pedestrians to step over them as abortion rights groups chanted and held signs nearby.
The Bush administration is defending the law as drawing a line between abortion and infanticide.
The method involves partially extracting an intact fetus from the uterus, then cutting or crushing its skull.
Doctors most often refer to the procedure as a dilation and extraction or an intact dilation and evacuation abortion.
The procedure appears to take place most often in the middle third of pregnancy. There are a few thousand such abortions, according to rough estimates, out of more than 1.25 million abortions in the United States annually. Ninety percent of all abortions occur in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, and are not at issue.
Six federal courts have said the law is an impermissible restriction on a woman's constitutional right to an abortion.
Clement told justices that it is significant whether "fetal demise takes place in utero or outside the mother's womb. The one is abortion, the other is murder."
Eve Gartner, arguing on behalf of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said, "What Congress has done here is take away from women the option of what may be the safest procedure for her. This court has never recognized a state interest that was sufficient to trump the women's interest in her health."
Four justices remain on the court who were part of a five-vote majority opinion that invalidated a similar Nebraska law six years ago because it lacked an exception to preserve a woman's health and encompassed a more common abortion method.
Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Souter and Stevens all indicated they were troubled either by the federal law's lack of a health exception and its apparent disregard for a significant body of medical opinion that the procedure can be the best choice.
Justice Anthony Kennedy raised questions about the law, but also voiced concerns six years ago before he wrote an impassioned dissent saying he would have upheld the Nebraska law.
Chief Justice John Roberts appeared favorably inclined to the administration's defense of the law. He asked several times whether there was any evidence to suggest the banned abortion procedure was anything more than marginally safer than the more common dilation and evacuation method, in which a fetus is dismembered as it is removed from the uterus.
Justice Samuel Alito, hearing his first abortion arguments since joining the court earlier this year, sat silently through two hours of debate. Justice Antonin Scalia, a vocal abortion opponent, also was uncharacteristically quiet through the arguments.
Justice Clarence Thomas was out sick Wednesday, but will take part in deciding the cases, Roberts announced.
A ruling is expected before July.
The cases are Gonzales v. Carhart, 05-380, and Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood, 05-1382.
This practice is so INTENSELY EVIL!!!
Am I missing something, or is it much ado about nothing as to how a late term fetus is killed?
Tiss true. The blood of these innocents cries out from the ground. If there is a God in Heaven, He just can not allow this to continue without bringing a harsh judgment against us.
The problem is we have let them define the baby as a fetus, which different in the minds of most people. Fetus = mass of cells.
I had a sorority sister who had an suction abortion at 12 weeks. I would have tried to talk her out of it if I had known before she did it, but I didn't. I just happened to go to her room the evening she had it done and she was in pain and crying. I sat with her and held her hand as she moaned and cried. I will never forget that night. I wonder where she is now and if she ever regrets it. She did that night, the only night she ever talked about it to me. A couple days after she was back to her old self and never mentioned it again.
Why the rush?
A friend had an abortion. She was part of a wonderful couple married for 15 years. After that, the marriage was on the rocks in six months and ended. So sad for so many.
Very poignant story ~ thank you for sharing that with us...
I am the proud mother of a grown daughter who was delivered at 31 weeks. She weighed 3 pounds at birth. IMO, what these sick-minded people are doing is brutal murder. I have no doubt about it. I challenge anyone that disagrees to visit a neonatal unit and look at the tiny premature babies they're trying to save.
Lord, please guide the justices in their decision about the termination of human life.
First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.
Pastor Martin Niemöller
Community and individuality are not opposites. People cannot survive on their own. When the odds are stacked against you, you must rally with the oppressed and hated.
When a growing oppressive regime is taking hold, you must act, otherwise you will soon face your enemy alone and hopeless.
Strength of community is a strength as much as individualism, as long you are willing to face weaknesses in your own community. Ignoring slacking values will mean that you will be rallied against by those you oppress.
Niemöller affirms we must rally against unhealthy organized regimes. We must also stay vigilant with those that appear to be good natured, as all organisation attracts corruption. Niemöller also warns us that if it is you who are corrupt, then you will face a stronger combined force of foe!
Vexen Crabtree
I was in nursing for a while....years ago....where miracles like your daughter were rare. With todays technology, these little angels can be saved and deserve at least a chance! It makes me physically ill to think what these ghouls do to a precious life. God have mercy....they will need it.
BTTT.
The PBA act has basically laid down a marker. If the baby passes that marker, say the belly button of Mama for instance, then that is the dividing line between a constitutional killing and an unconstitutional killing of the baby.
The first procedure would be a DE and the second a DX. DE is "fetal demise" and DX is unlawful killing.
Sad stuff man.
What I am getting at, is that the partial birth abortion ban does not ban next to the last moment abortions, it just dictates using other means. Is that a correct interpretation? If so, color me unimpressed about the issue.
what a story......thanks for sharing. We are fast becoming a perverted nation!!!
what a story......thanks for sharing. We are fast becoming a perverted nation!!!
"Why, once the head has been delivered, is it necessary to "crush" the babys' head? To murder the baby?"
There is no reason. It would be like saying that once the head is delivered, there must be some mysterious reason why the shoulders and rest of the body COULDN'T be delivered, else the mother would die.
And what medical condition might that be praytell?
The only purpose is to have a dead baby, plain and simple.
" That's right folks, unborn children are DISMEMBERED WHILE ALIVE then removed from the uterus in pieces. "
Some of these babies were born alive, but missing limbs.
Often the abortionist will leave pieces of the baby in the woman- who will develop an infection and wind up later in the local ER.
Abortion is legal - but it isn't safe.
Read Lime5 by Mark Crutcher to get a good picture of what is really happening at these slaughter houses.
"What I am getting at, is that the partial birth abortion ban does not ban next to the last moment abortions, it just dictates using other means. Is that a correct interpretation? If so, color me unimpressed about the issue."
Correct...BUT in the effort to change the hearts and minds of public opinion, it is necessary to take baby steps.
First...we, as a society, recognize the barbarity of one procedure. Hopefully this will lead us to then examine the procedure that replaces it.
I think abortionists turned to PBA to avoid the chances of infection by leaving parts of the baby inside the woman.
If the debate over PBA can be won...then the debate can turn to the barbarity of burning babies alive with saline solution and hacking their limbs off their bodies at a stage where scientists know they can feel immense pain.
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