Health? What about the health of the child!
Catholic Ping - let me know if you want on/off this list
Posted on 09/08/2004 10:23:44 AM PDT by NYer
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) _ A third federal judge ruled Wednesday that the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act is unconstitutional, saying it fails to include an exception when a woman's health is in danger.
U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf in Lincoln said that Congress ignored the most experienced doctors in determining that the banned procedure would never be necessary _ a finding he called ``unreasonable.'' ``According to responsible medical opinion, there are times when the banned procedure is medically necessary to preserve the health of a woman and a respectful reading of the congressional record proves that point,'' Kopf wrote. ``No reasonable and unbiased person could come to a different conclusion.'' The abortion ban was signed last year by President Bush but was not enforced because three federal judges, in Lincoln, New York and San Francisco, agreed to hear constitutional challenges in simultaneous non-jury trials.
Last month, U.S. District Judge Richard C. Casey in New York said the Supreme Court has made it clear that a banned procedure must allow an exception to preserve a woman's health _ even as he called the abortion procedure ``gruesome, brutal, barbaric and uncivilized.'' In June, U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton in San Francisco also found the law unconstitutional, saying it ``poses an undue burden on a woman's right to choose an abortion.'' The three rulings are expected to be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Nebraska lawsuit was filed by New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights on behalf of physicians including Dr. LeRoy Carhart, who brought an earlier challenge that led the U.S. Supreme Court in 2000 to overturn a similar ban passed by Nebraska lawmakers. ``It's a shame that I have to continue going to court, fighting the same fight to protect my patients' health,'' Carhart said Wednesday. ``But if the government takes this battle back to the Supreme Court, I will continue the fight to be able to provide the safest care for my patients.'' Nebraska Right to Life Director Julie Schmit-Albin declined immediate comment because she had not yet read the ruling.
The federal law bars a procedure doctors called ``intact dilation and extraction,'' or D&X, and opponents call partial-birth abortion. During the procedure, generally performed in the second trimester, a fetus is partially removed from the womb and its skull is punctured or crushed. The ban, which President Clinton twice vetoed, was seen by abortion rights activists as a fundamental departure from the Supreme Court's 1973 precedent in Roe v. Wade. But the Bush administration has argued that the procedure is cruel and unnecessary and causes pain to the fetus. The law contains an exception when the life of the mother _ but not her health _ is at risk. Backers of the ban said a health exception would open a major loophole, allowing abortions even when the mental health of the mother is in question.
Carhart and his lawyers also said the law is vague and could be interpreted as covering more common, less controversial procedures, including ``dilatation and evacuation,'' or D&E, which is the most common method of second-trimester abortion. A total of 1.3 million abortions are performed in the United States each year. Almost 90 percent occur in the first trimester. An estimated 140,000 D&Es take place in the United States annually, compared with an estimated 2,200 to 5,000 D&X procedures.
Kopf said Congress didn't take into account the opinions of doctors who had recent experience with surgical abortions. ``The long and short of it is that Congress arbitrarily relied upon the opinions of doctors who claimed to have no (or very little) recent and relevant experience with surgical abortions,'' Kopf said. ``It is unreasonable to ignore the voices of the most experienced doctors and pretend that they do not exist.'' Kopf said his ruling did not apply in cases where the fetus is viable _ or able to survive outside the womb. One doctor testified during the trial that medical advances have made it possible to deliver a viable fetus as early as 23 weeks, or late in the second trimester, through Caesarean section. ``The court does not determine whether the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 is constitutional or unconstitutional when the fetus is indisputably viable,'' Kopf wrote.
Doctors have construed the Supreme Court's decision in Roe. v. Wade to mean they can perform abortions usually until the 24th to 28th week after conception, or until the ``point of viability.'' After that, abortions are generally performed only to preserve the mother's health.
On the Net:
The National Right to Life Committee: http://www.nrlc.org
Planned Parenthood: http://www.plannedparenthood.org
AP-ES-09-08-04 1205EDT
Naturally, nobody seems to care that every young unborn child's life is constantly in danger so long as the abortionazis run rampant.
Health? What about the health of the child!
Catholic Ping - let me know if you want on/off this list
Thomas Jefferson warned us about tyrants like this judge.
Well, it's a real killer on the baby's health. But the mother? How does it help her health to have a dead baby versus a live baby? He's out already.
These judges certainly lack the wisdom of Solomon.
Was Kopf the same judge who did this a few years back? Is this more evidence of judge shopping?
It will be a long, long fight with many reversals.
It will be a long, long fight with many reversals.
My copy of the constitution does not have anything about Womans health in it.
I did find a reference to premaditated murder in the penal code.
In what circumstances is a woman's health in jeapordy if her baby is delivered via section versus crushing the baby's head and sucking it out of the womb?
This is pure unadulterated horse manure. If so, please tell me when that might be. These secularists are going to be the undoing of this land.
Deacon Francis
Adding even greater emphasis to the importance of re-electing the President.
Imagine the federal judges that John Kerry would appoint!
Thanks for the post on this important topic.
If you can describe the procedure you already know that the health of the mother is not involved, and should not be the basis for an exception. It is a 3 day long procedure, with the first two days spent dilating with seaweed in order to pull the child out. If your health was threatened would you choose a 3 day long risky procedure?
Another liberal activist judge using his personal beliefs to legislate from the bench. This is a crisis which is going to get heated in the future.
"If our nation be destroyed, it would be from the judiciary."
Thomas Jefferson
I heard an account a couple months ago, a story about Bishop Fulton Sheen, I believe, who was in an airplane. It was Friday, (not sure if it was lent) and the stewardess offered him a meal, he thought a moment and declined saying that he would fast. The lady sitting next to him, also declined her meal and stated that she would fast with him. Delighted, the bishop then engaged in conversation with her and to his horror, learned that she was a witch fasting FOR abortions.
This is not only a physical war but a spiritual one.
Not to mention the fact that the partial birth abortion is used at a point in pregnancy when the baby is quite often quite "viable". I shudder to think that my daughter who was born two months early could have LEGALLY been aborted with one of these late term "partial birth" abortions.
If a woman can endure a partial birth - they can endure a regular birth.
Kopf may have shot himself in the foot with the above statement! Who decides if the fetus is indisputably viable?
Perhaps Dr. Carhart should be hauled into court whenever he performs a "D & X". Make him prove that the fetus wasn't viable. Forensic evidence may say otherwise!
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