Pro-Life/Pro-Baby ping!
NY's Appeals Court has weighed in after the 9th's decision today...
Please FReepmail me if you would like to be added to, or removed from, the Pro-Life/Pro-Baby ping list...
Posted on 01/31/2006 3:24:54 PM PST by Reagan Man
Two federal appeals courts on opposite sides of the country declared the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act unconstitutional Tuesday, saying the measure lacks an exception for cases in which a woman's health is at stake.
The first ruling came from a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Hours later, a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan issued a similar decision in a 2-1 ruling.
The New York decision affirmed a 2004 ruling by a judge who upheld the right to perform the procedure even as he described the procedure as "gruesome, brutal, barbaric and uncivilized."
Tuesday's ruling was marked by an unusually sharp dissent by Judge Chester J. Straub, who said he believed Congress' determination that the procedure was never medically necessary to protect a women's health was well founded and supported by a lower court ruling.
"Allowing a physician to destroy a child as long as one toe remains within the mother would place society on the path towards condoning infanticide," he said.
He added: "I find the current expansion of the right to terminate a pregnancy to cover a child in the process of being born morally, ethically and legally unacceptable."
The California court said the law was vague and so broad that no other remedy was possible except to throw it out.
"We are reluctant to invalidate an entire statute," Circuit Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote. "However, after considering all of the obstacles to our devising a narrower remedy, we conclude that such is our obligation."
The panel also rejected arguments made by the Justice Department that there was general agreement among doctors that such late-term abortions were never necessary to preserve the health of a woman.
"The government all but admits in its reply brief that no medical consensus exists regarding the need for the prohibited procedures to preserve the health of women in certain circumstances," the panel concluded.
Justice Department attorneys also said the procedure is inhumane and causes pain to the fetus. A government lawyer argued it "blurs the line of abortion and infanticide."
The law, signed in 2003, banned a procedure known to doctors as intact dilation and extraction and called partial-birth abortion by abortion foes. The fetus is partially removed from the womb, and the skull is punctured or crushed. The procedure is generally performed in the second trimester.
President Bush signed the abortion ban in 2003, but it was not enforced because of legal challenges in several states.
A federal judge in Nebraska also has ruled the ban unconstitutional. The Nebraska ruling was upheld in July by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and has been appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Tuesday's decisions were also expected to be appealed to the high court.
The ban, which President Clinton twice vetoed, was seen by abortion rights activists as a fundamental departure from the Supreme Court's 1973 precedent in Roe v. Wade. But the Bush administration has ued that the procedure is cruel and unnecessary and causes pain to the fetus.
"W" needs two more appointments to lock in a change.
NY's Appeals Court has weighed in after the 9th's decision today...
Please FReepmail me if you would like to be added to, or removed from, the Pro-Life/Pro-Baby ping list...
Tuesday's ruling was marked by an unusually sharp dissent by Judge Chester J. Straub, who said he believed Congress' determination that the procedure was never medically necessary to protect a women's health was well founded and supported by a lower court ruling.
"Allowing a physician to destroy a child as long as one toe remains within the mother would place society on the path towards condoning infanticide," he said.
He added: "I find the current expansion of the right to terminate a pregnancy to cover a child in the process of being born morally, ethically and legally unacceptable."
I'm going to remember this Judge's name. A voice for the unborn on our courts. Imagine that. God Bless him.
It's probably gonna take two more conservative appointments to overturn Roe v Wade. Then back to states and many years of intense public debate before abortion on demand is abolished. One day it will happen. If you think some Democrats were upset over Sam Alito getting confirmed, what till you see what happens with Bush`s next pick. There will be a few Dems placed on suicide watch.
Thanks for the megaping, cgk.
Thanks for the megaping, Coleus.
Under Chief Justice Roberts abortions would be automatically stayed pending disposition of any appeal.
You're welcome :).
Touche!
Hmmm.... courts in New York and California, eh? Yup. That's certainly "middle America." /sarcasm
Out of curiosity (because I couldn't remember the tally) I looked up the senate roll call on this bill, S.3 from 2003. It pi$$ed me off all over again that 33 A$$HOLES voted against the ban.
16 (if I counted correctly) Dems voted for the ban.
Chafee, Snowe and Collins voted against the ban.
And I was reminded that Kerry and Edwards (and Biden) did not vote. But maybe Kerry voted against it before not voting.
SCOTUS still favors abortion and perversion 5-4.
I agree. We need another conservative justice or two, and no more stealth candidates.
The Alito confirmation has shown that a stellar conservative can be confirmed, and it has also shown that the abortion card no longer has the same power it used to have. The Senate is more frightened of the pro-lifers, and the decent instincts of the average voter, than it is of NOW and NARAL. And rightly so.
Let's put Judge Straub on the Supreme Court.
If Alito and Roberts are conservatives as advertised, partial birth abortion could be on its way out, at least in some states. It could happen next year.
as well as forbidden by proper statute... and yet it still must be protected? Exactly which other protected rights are brutal and barbaric? Care to explain that, judge?
I was extremely impressed with Judge Alito and his ability to express himself on all the issues, in a fair, honest and direct fashion. John Roberts maybe another Rehnquist. I think Sam Alito is a conservative minded jurist, with a strict constructionist understanding of our Constitution.
Do they define "health" of the mother?
Physical health? Birth could result in pain afterall.
Mental Health?
Financial Health?
Spiritual Health?
Meta-physical Health?
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