Posted on 11/05/2003 12:06:41 PM PST by PhiKapMom
The President signed the Partial Birth Abortion bill today and within an hour, a Nebraska Federal Judge according to Fox News had put a stay on the Partial Birth Abortion bill taking effect. ACLU is also shopping for a Manhatten Federal Judge to do the same.
Since these liberal judges have taken this action, it is up to Freepers to take action. Please start writing letters and calling talk radio NOW. You can find the info for your area by visiting Bush-Cheney '04 at:
Please post on this thread the action you have taken and notify all your email lists to also take action. Time for all of us not to take it anymore from these Federal judges.
Appointed as U.S. District Judge: May 26, 1992; be-came chief judge for the District of Nebraska, 1999Biography: Born Dec. 1, 1946, in Toledo, Ohio. Gradu-ate of Kearney State College, 1969; University of NebraskaCollege of Law (with distinction and Order of the Coif),1972. Married Verdella Blank Kopf (deceased Dec. 26, 1986).Three children: Marne C. Byrd, Lisa Kopf and Keller Kopf.Married Joan Stofferson, April 30, 1992. Former: appointedfull-time U.S. magistrate, 1987; served as counsel for the stateof Nebraska in regard to the impeachment of the Nebraskaattorney general, 1984; private law practice, Cook, Kopf andDoyle, Lexington, 1974-86; law clerk to Donald R. Ross, U.S.Circuit Judge, 1972-74. Honors and awards: elected Fellowof the Nebraska Bar Foundation, 1989.
Bush Signs Abortion Ban; Judge Stays Law in NebraskaI saw Judge Nigapillio (SP) on Fox News immediately after the signing discussing the legislation. He mentioned that the PBA had been struck down in Nebraska some years back by the same SCOTUS we have today but that he thought this writing would stand up.... He mentioned that there were at least three appeals coming. So this stay occuring in Nebraska where the Law had once been struck down and one of the appeals filed there isn't surprising....
President Bush on Wednesday afternoon signed the first federal law to restrict an abortion procedure since the U.S. Supreme Court's 30-year-old Roe v. Wade decision.
But less than an hour later, a U.S. District judge blocked the legislation from taking effect in Nebraska, where one of three appeals against the new law had been filed, the Associated Press reports.
The bill outlawing what opponents call "partial birth" abortion had been challenged even before it became law.
In acting on the Nebraska appeal, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Kopf stopped short of barring the law's implementation nationwide. But he issued the Nebraska edict because the law did not make an exception for the health of the mother. Hearings were also held Wednesday on similar challenges in San Francisco and New York City.
The "partial-birth" procedure, generally done in the second or third trimester, involves partial delivery of the fetus before it is killed. Anti-abortion groups had sought to have the procedure outlawed since 1995. But two separate attempts were both vetoed by then-President Bill Clinton, who said both did not provide exceptions to protect the mother's health.
Supporters of the legislation say it applies only to a relatively rare procedure done late in pregnancy, the AP reports. Pro-choice groups counter that the measure's language is overly broad and could wind up making several other safe and common procedures illegal.
Well actually, Congress could have included language in the bill to preclude federal appeal, but of course it didn't.
That said, I'd like to put out some logic that I think we should deal with. Since I read Roe v Wade some years ago, I may be misremembering some things. I don't want to go reread it because, frankly, when I read it before I had to watch Walt Disney's Fantasia twice to wash the corruption out of my mind.
The basic way the SC ruled the anti-abortion laws in the states unconstitutional was the 9th amendment (rights retained by the people) "purviewed" through the 14th amendment (citizen of the US only, not a state and recognized only if "born or naturalized).
Any other considerations notwithstanding, The "born or naturalized" clause in the 14th, to the extent Roe relied on it, would have to mean actually, physically born, and out of the mother's womb.
I would think any court would have to follow what the SC rules for the reasons the SC used.
A law banning a partial birth birth procedure, and with the wording I last saw when I read the bill (it was when it was first posted here), it could be reasonably argued that it is an anti-abortion law. An anti-abortion law wouldn't, by the reasoning above, be constitutional based on Roe's interpretation of the constitution, which is alive and active.
My understanding is that a court can take "judicial notice" of precedents and other facts that bear on a case. It may be that even a conservative judge would have to use those considerations, that it be likely the SC would rule it unconstitutional under their previous notions of the post 14th amendment era constitution.
I'd like it to be otherwise, but this is how I read the situation.
Yes, but the reasons the SC ruled how they did in Roe v Wade would be a judicially noticed fact, wouldn't it? I don't think the court would have to mention it's judicial notices in its rulings; they could rule on any reasonable point, as I understand, but do it noting that the law was unlikly to survive the SC, and that being the real consideration.
Maybe somebody out here has more expert knowledge of the situation.
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