Judge strikes down partial-birth abortion ban
- May 31, 2004
The United States government has lost in one federal court in its attempt to ban partial-birth abortion.
A federal judge in San Francisco ruled June 1 the Partial-birth Abortion Ban Act is an unconstitutional burden on a woman’s right to abort her unborn child. It was the first of three federal court decisions to be issued on the law.
In her 117-page opinion, Phyllis Hamilton ruled the 2003 law is: (1) An “undue burden” on a woman’s right to have an abortion in the second trimester; (2) “unconstitutionally vague,” and (3) needs an exception for the mother’s health to meet requirements established by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Hamilton permanently blocked enforcement of the law but applied that injunction only to the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and its affiliates, the city and county of San Francisco, and their representatives.
The decision in the northern district of California precedes opinions from federal courts in New York and Lincoln, Neb. Trials concerning the ban of a procedure that involves the killing of a nearly totally delivered child began in all three courts March 29. All three judges had issued temporary injunctions preventing enforcement of the ban.
“This is yet one more tragic example of a federal judiciary whose moral compass has been grossly demagnetized,” ERLC President Richard Land said. “This decision underscores the fact that there are people in our society who are willing to tolerate or affirm dismembering a partially born baby in pursuit of individual choice.”
Hamilton’s ruling came in a challenge to a law President Bush signed in November. It prohibits a procedure that normally occurs in the fifth or sixth month of pregnancy. The abortion doctor delivers an intact baby 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, then inserts a catheter into the opening and suctions out the brain.