Third judge strikes down partial birth abortion ban
- Sep 1, 2004 - comment
The Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act struck out at the federal court level.
On Sept. 8, Richard Kopf became the third federal judge to strike down the 2003 law, which prohibits an abortion procedure on a nearly totally delivered unborn child. Kopf’s decision in his Lincoln, Neb., courtroom followed similar rulings from federal judges Phyllis Hamilton in San Francisco and Richard Casey in New York City.
In his opinion, Kopf permanently blocked the law’s enforcement and ruled it failed at least two constitutional tests. Most notably, it lacked an exception for the mother’s health, he said.
In a statement after the opinion’s release, the Department of Justice, which defended the ban in all three courts, reiterated its intention to “continue to defend the law to protect innocent new life from partial birth abortion.” The department already has appealed Hamilton’s ruling to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
ERLC President Richard Land expressed disappointment but not surprise at the decision, especially since Kopf had struck down Nebraska’s partial birth abortion ban in 1997.
“What about a health exception for the unborn child?” Land asked. “There is, and always has been, an exception involving the life of the mother. What about an exception for the unborn child who dies every time there is a partial birth abortion? It’s time that the government of the people, by the people and for the people insists that unborn human life be revalued.”
The cases appear destined to converge at the Supreme Court, which appears unlikely to support the law with its current justices.
Last November, President Bush signed the ban into law. 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.