High court accepts second partial birth case

By Tom Strode - Jul 14, 2006

The Supreme Court has agreed to review a second case involving the federal Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act.

The high court announced June 19 it had accepted an appeal from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which struck down the 2003 law. In this case, the justices will determine if the ban imposes an undue burden on women and is too vague.

The Supreme Court announced in February it would review an appeal from the Eighth Circuit, which invalidated the law based on its lack of an exception for the health of the mother.

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the cases during its next term, which begins in October. The Ninth Circuit case is Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood, and the Eighth Circuit appeal is in Gonzales v. Carhart.

The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission signed onto a friend-of-the-court brief filed in May in the Eighth Circuit case in support of the law. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops submitted the brief.

The law bars a gruesome procedure typically used in the fifth or sixth month of pregnancy. In the method, an intact baby typically is delivered feet first until only the head is left in the birth canal. The doctor pierces the base of the infant’s skull with surgical scissors before inserting a catheter into the opening and suctioning out the brain. The technique provides for easier removal of the baby’s head.

Three different appeals courts at the federal level have ruled the prohibition is unconstitutional, but pro-life advocates hold out hope the January confirmation of Samuel Alito as an associate justice means the Supreme Court will reverse those decisions. Alito replaced retired Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who voted with a 5-4 majority that struck down a state ban on partial-birth abortion six years ago.

After Bush signed the bill into law in November 2003, abortion rights organizations quickly challenged it in three courts and blocked its enforcement. Federal judges in New York City, San Francisco and Lincoln, Neb., struck down the law. Three-judge panels in the Ninth Circuit, based in San Francisco; Eighth Circuit, based in St. Louis, and Second Circuit, based in New York, upheld the lower court decisions.

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