Partial birth abortion ruling appealed to Ninth Circuit
- Aug 13, 2004 - comment
The Bush administration filed an appeal Aug. 2 seeking to overturn a San Francisco federal judge’s opinion striking down the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act.
The Justice Department appealed to the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The court, which is based in San Francisco, is generally regarded as the country’s most liberal appeals court.
Federal judge Phyllis Hamilton struck down the ban June 1, ruling it was an unconstitutional burden on a woman’s right to abort her child in the second trimester and that it needed an exception for the mother’s health.
Hamilton’s opinion was the first of three on the 2003 law in trials that all began March 29. Federal judges in New York and Lincoln, Neb., are expected to issue rulings before the end of the summer. Supporters of the ban are cautiously optimistic about receiving a favorable decision in the Manhattan court of Richard Casey.
The challenges in the courts are 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. The collapse of the skull provides for easier removal of the baby’s head.