Lawyer: abortion ban unconstitutional

Newsday ^ | 3-29-04 | PATRICIA HURTADO

[truthandlife]

A lawyer representing physicians who conduct abortions and civil liberties groups charged yesterday that the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act should be set aside because it, "unconstitutionally compromises a woman's right to reproductive choice."

The case, being heard as a bench trial before Manhattan U.S. District Court Judge Richard Casey, was brought by a group of seven physicians who perform abortions, the National Abortion Federation, along with the American Civil Liberties Union and the New York Civil Liberties Union.

Challenges to the ban were also heard yesterday in federal courts in San Francisco and Omaha, Nebraska.

Although the ban was signed into law by President George Bush in November, it never went into effect after Casey and two other federal judges stayed it pending trials to determine its constitutionality.

The plaintiffs' lawyer, A. Stephen Hut, charged yesterday in opening arguments that the ban is unconstitutional because it contains no exceptions allowing a procedure to be performed to preserve a woman's health.

[Cedar]

I just about can't stand to read about this...how demented can people be? What about the babies' rights to live and not be murdered?

[A CA Guy]

We have to work at restricting activities of lawyers to benefit the country more.

[pacpam]

Murder by any other name is partial birth abortion. Doctors who perform this type of abortion are not dumb. They know that as long as the child is still within the birth canal when it is killed, it is not murder. Lawyers figured it out for them.

[rightwingcrazy]

"unconstitutionally compromises a woman's right to reproductive choice."

I would think that the choice for reproduction would begin just a bit before conception. What's at issue here is whether and when a child in the womb becomes a human being. Or maybe even less than that, since there are laws requiring even animals to be treated humanely.

[supercat]

I bigger constitutional question would be why abortion would fall under federal jurisdiction when homicide, in general, does not.

[Tax Government]

To be a lawyer conveys no assurance whatever of having honor or integrity...

A lawyer representing physicians who conduct abortions and civil liberties groups charged yesterday that the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act should be set aside because it, "unconstitutionally compromises a woman's right to reproductive choice."

Then, whether or not to murder must just be another life choice, on a par with whether or not to get a haircut.I would like the state to execute all abortion doctors with a C4 enema.

[A CA Guy]

Of course that is murder, as is all abortion.

My thinking which I have expressed here one hundred times is:

We have to go with the bulk of what we can pass with our citizens in law.
I think we can go as far as NO ABORTION except for rape and incest or proved physical life or death issues of the mother.
That saves at least 400,000 a year of the 425,000 kids that are murdered. The rest we should fight for outside of the law on a personal basis one on one.

We can't win an all or nothing, but we can win the above argument if we set it up right and that would save IMO hundreds of thousands of lives.

Yep, I believe in no abortion, but the reality is that we can pass NONE and have to start with what I posted above to turn this trend around.

[Jaysun]

Who gives a rat's ass what this lawyer thinks!

[Paulie]

"I bigger constitutional question would be why abortion would fall under federal jurisdiction when homicide, in general, does not"

Are you sure about that? I'm no expert but I thought murder was a felony, and a felony is by definition a federal issue.

[spunkets]

Ashcroft attempted to obtain supoenas for the physician's records of the hitmen formerly doing the procedure, to show there was no mama's heath issue. Several judges refused on the bogus grounds that it invaded patients privacy. THe records were to have the patient's info removed first.

[supercat]

Are you sure about that? I'm no expert but I thought murder was a felony, and a felony is by definition a federal issue.

All fifty states define murder as a felony, but state felonies are not a federal issue.

[jwalsh07]

"unconstitutionally compromises a woman's right to reproductive choice."

Did this replace the hangnail exception?

[spunkets]

"a felony is by definition a federal issue."

Felony simply means a potential jail term of more than a year. Misdemeanor is a crime with a potential jail term of less than a year.

[jwalsh07]

I bigger constitutional question would be why abortion would fall under federal jurisdiction when homicide, in general, does not.

it's actually not a question at all since this legislation only applies to fed territory.

Of course, once it's ruled Constitutional then most states will immediately follow suit.

[spunkets]

"constitutional question would be why abortion would fall under federal jurisdiction"

FDA regulates physicians and their services under the commerce clause. If Congress recognizes that a paticular service is no more than a rights violation, it can ban it.

Both Congress and the Bush admin find that the above is true. In an above post I indicated that some judges and the plantiffs that brought suit are refusing to come up with the physician records that show there is no truth to the claim it's for the life and health of the mama. The kid's half way out for goodness sakes.

[jwalsh07]

And then there's always that pesky Commerce Clause.

[supercat]

I think we can go as far as NO ABORTION except for rape and incest or proved physical life or death issues of the mother.

I would extend it to include severe bodily harm beyond that associated with reasonably-normal pregnancy--using basically the same standard as would apply in self-defense cases. Additionally, I might suggest legislation that would forbid doctors from being paid to perform abortions.

If a doctor who was true to his oath believed that an abortion was truly medically necessary to prevent severe bodily harm to his primary patient, his willingness to perform such a procedure should not be affected by whether or not he's paid. If he believes it appropriate and necessary, he should be willing to do the procedure without getting paid. If he would refuse to do the procedure without payment, that would suggest he's not convinced it's really necessary.

BTW, I'd be curious if someone could answer a few hypotheticals:

• If a woman who was 8 weeks pregnant were discovered to have spreading cancers, how would one establish the likelihood of saving baby and mother? If saving the mother would require an immediate course of chemo, would it be better to kill the baby via surgical abortion, or to poison it with the chemo? At 8 weeks gestation, I don't know of any way to save the baby without significantly delaying chemo, seriously jeopardizing the mother's life, but I also don't know of any way to perform chemo without killing an unborn child.
• If a pregnant woman were found to have uterine cancer (diagnosis confirmed via biopsy), what would be the available courses of action? Operating on the uterus with a baby inside would seem rather difficult, though perhaps technologies have improved to make things feasible that would not have been twenty years ago.

[supercat]

And then there's always that pesky Commerce Clause.

I am well aware that politicians routinely use the Commerce Clause as a means of ignoring the rest of the Constitution, but that doesn't mean that it's right.

[jwalsh07]

The right to life is Constitutionally guaranteed, if the states won't do it, then the feds must. If Massachusetts decided to kill everybody over the age of 70, the feds will have to act then as well.