Justices’ review of partial-birth abortion ban encouraging
- Feb 28, 2006
The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission and other pro-life organizations were encouraged when the U.S. Supreme Court announced Feb. 21 it will decide if a federal ban on partial-birth abortion is constitutional.
The justices will not hear oral arguments in the case, Gonzales v. Carhart, until their next term, which will begin in October.
The news provided pro-lifers with hope the high court will uphold the first restriction on a specific procedure since abortion was legalized 33 years ago. The justices will review a decision from the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals striking down the Partial-birth Abortion Ban Act. The Eighth Circuit was one of three appellate courts in recent months to affirm lower court rulings invalidating the 2003 law.
The recent addition of Associate Justice Samuel Alito to the high court bolstered hopes the justices may permit the ban after striking down a state prohibition on the gruesome procedure in 2000. In that 5-4 ruling, Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor voted with the majority. She has retired, however, and been replaced by Alito, who was confirmed by the Senate in January. In addition to Alito, John Roberts also has joined the court since that opinion, replacing the late William Rehnquist as chief justice in September.
Rehnquist dissented in the 2000 ruling that invalidated Nebraska’s partial-birth abortion ban, and he was joined by three justices who remain on the court: Antonin Scalia; Anthony Kennedy, and Clarence Thomas. The addition of Roberts and Alito, who both have reputations for faithfulness to the constitutional text, sets up the possibility this time there will be five votes in favor of a prohibition on the technique.
“I am delighted the Roberts court has decided to take this case,” ERLC President Richard Land said, adding he hopes a ruling in favor of the ban “will be the first clear signal that the Roberts court will be much more protective of human life than its Rehnquist predecessor.”
The law in question bars a grisly procedure used by some doctors in which an intact baby is delivered normally 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 technique normally occurs in the fifth or sixth month of pregnancy.
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