"SAVE THE BABY WHALES!"
Posted on 08/27/2004 1:33:08 PM PDT by JesseHousman
U.S. District Judge Richard Casey became the second federal judge to call the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act unconstitutional.
NEW YORK - A federal judge declared the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act unconstitutional Thursday in the second such ruling in three months -- even though he called the procedure ``gruesome, brutal, barbaric and uncivilized.''
U.S. District Judge Richard Casey -- one of three federal judges across the country to hear simultaneous challenges to the law earlier this year -- faulted the ban for not containing an exception to protect a woman's health, something the Supreme Court has made clear is required in laws prohibiting particular types of abortion.
The law, signed in November, 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.
Louise Melling, director of the ACLU's Reproductive Freedom Project, said her group was thrilled by the ruling: ``We can only hope as we have decision after decision after decision striking these bans, saying they endanger women's health, that the legislatures will finally stop.''
On June 1, U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton in San Francisco also found the law unconstitutional, saying it violates a woman's right to choose an abortion. A judge in Lincoln, Neb., has yet to rule. The three judges suspended the ban while they held the trials.
The three verdicts are almost certain to be appealed to the Supreme Court.
''We are in the process of the appeal of these issues now, which tells you exactly what we're doing and where we're going,'' Attorney General John Ashcroft said Thursday.
The ban, which President Clinton twice vetoed, was seen by abortion rights activists as a fundamental departure from the Supreme Court's Roe vs. Wade. But the Bush administration has argued that the procedure is cruel and unnecessary and causes pain to the fetus.
At trials earlier this year, doctors testified that of 1.3 million abortions performed annually, the law would affect about 130,000. Some observers suggest the number would be much lower -- 2,200 to 5,000.
In his ruling, Casey said that there is evidence that the procedure can have safety advantages for women. He said the Supreme Court had made it clear that ``this gruesome procedure may be outlawed only if there exists a medical consensus that there is no circumstance in which any women could potentially benefit from it.''
At another point, Casey wrote that testimony put before himself and Congress showed the outlawed abortion technique to be a ``gruesome, brutal, barbaric and uncivilized medical procedure.''
Casey, who was appointed to the bench by Clinton in 1997, was considered by some observers to be the best legal hope for the law's supporters.
''The judge was very aggressive in his questioning and very transparent in his articulation of his personal views on the matter,'' said Gloria Feldt, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. ``Fortunately, he chose to uphold the law.''
Louise Melling, director of the ACLU's Reproductive Freedom Project, said her group was thrilled by the ruling...
District Judge Phyllis Hamilton in San Francisco...
Casey, who was appointed to the bench by Clinton sco also found the law unconstitutional...
This says it all:ACLU, Clinton Judges (regardless of their weak statements of disagreement)are gleefully happy that this nation has become one of "saving whales and turtles," but to hell with innocent babies!
Please tell me where God is when it is legal to stab a baby in the head with scissors while it is kicking and fighting to survive, but illegal to step foot in the sacred territory of the ...turtle or rat or whatever else it is they are saving this week.
The ACLU will not be satisfied until children and Christians are the endangered species.
God help us all and forgive this world for what it is becoming.
We should all do this on days like today. This is a good place to find brutally honest depiction of the bitter fruit of late-term abortion.
"SAVE THE BABY WHALES!"
Pro-abortionists delight in scenes like this. Here's a child who had his brain removed by a "skillful" doctor.
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