Justice to appeal partial birth abortion rulings

By Tom Strode - Sep 30, 2004 - comment

The Department of Justice announced Sept. 27 it will appeal two more decisions against the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act.

The department will appeal to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals an opinion by federal judge Richard Kopf of Lincoln, Neb., invalidating the 2003 law, which prohibits an abortion procedure on a nearly totally delivered unborn child. DOJ will appeal to the Second Circuit Court a ruling by Richard Casey of New York City. The department already had announced it would contest before the Ninth Circuit Court a decision by Phyllis Hamilton of San Francisco.

The cases appear destined to converge at the Supreme Court, which will be a problem for the law’s supporters without a change in justices. The current justices struck down Nebraska’s partial birth abortion ban in 2000, though it varied from the federal ban that eventually became law.

President Bush signed the federal ban into law 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. The collapse of the skull provides for easier removal of the baby’s head.

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