Posted on 10/24/2005 10:19:48 PM PDT by Coleus
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court under new Chief Justice John Roberts cleared the way on Monday for a pregnant Missouri prisoner to obtain an abortion, despite objections from state officials.
In a brief order without comment or recorded dissent, the high court rejected Missouri's request to put on hold a federal judge's order requiring that prison authorities transport the inmate to a St. Louis clinic for an abortion.
How Roberts would rule on abortion was a major issue in his confirmation hearings in the Senate. This was the first abortion-related case the court has acted upon since he became chief justice, but since there was no written ruling it does not necessarily signify how he would vote on the issue in future cases.
Officials said Missouri has a prison policy that female prisoners will be sent out of their institutions for abortions only if the procedure is medically necessary.
They cited Missouri's laws that they said discourage abortions and encourage childbirth. They said any time an inmate is transported outside of a prison it raises possible security issues.
Even if there is some infringement of the prisoner's constitutional rights to choose an abortion, "a prison regulation may validly impinge on such rights if the regulation is reasonably related to legitimate penological interests," state officials argued.
According to the court record in the case, the woman, identified only by the pseudonym "Jane Roe," is approximately 16 or 17 weeks pregnant. Her attorneys said that for seven weeks prison officials have prohibited her from obtaining an abortion.
Talcott Camp, an attorney from the American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing the inmate, said in a statement that women do not give up the right to terminate a pregnancy when they enter prison.
"The state's actions in this case were contrary to Missouri's own long-standing policy when it comes to inmates' access to reproductive healthcare, in addition to policies in the federal prison system and all the state prison systems we know of," Camp said.
Gov. Matt Blunt expressed disappointment and said the high court's order "is highly offensive to traditional Missouri values and is contrary to state law, which prohibits taxpayer dollars from being spent to facilitate abortions."
or maybe it's poor leadership skills.
The best interpretation for the anti-abortion crusaders (personally, I'm best described as neutral--shocking, I know) is that Roberts (and perhaps others who would like to overturn Roe v. Wade) have wisely decided not to raise the fear level of the pro-abortionists while a Supreme Court nomination yet hangs in the balance.
All the court did is essentially let the lower court ruling stand. Even if the case was taken up, it would have resulted in the same outcome 5-4 (assuming Roberts would side with the state position).
you may have a good point.
The chief justice isn't God. He can only do so much.
Uh Oh. Dont say that on here.
seems the ACLU argued on the right to choose and not based on Missouri law limiting abortions to only those women who were ill.
States rights trumped again.
They argued a possible security and transportation issues for their reason ???
It's a state's right's issue. Roberts voted correctly.
This case was about taxpayer money being used to pay the transportation/security cost to take this inmate to a clinic to get an abortion.
Missouri law states no taxpayer money can be used for someone to get an abortion ( this includes transportation and security costs ).
The "procedure" ( killing of the baby ) will be paid for by this inmate ( with a loan from friends and relatives ) but she said she couldn`t pay the transportaion cost. So this lawasuit was filed thanks to the ACLU.
If the courts are going to force the state to give her a ride and security, I say bill her and let her work the transportation cost off in prison.
I'm not in the least surprised. When asked by the liberal Senators if his religion, (Catholic Christian) would interfere with his judicial decisions, Roberts soothed their souls when he responded that he wouldn't be taking his faith to work with him.
Unfortuantely, we're all being 'billed' for abortion, and the price is getting higher every day.
Since there was no opinion, we don't know anything at all. Other than the high court did not find a worthwhile constitutional issue with the prior decision. I don't know the specifics of the case, but I don't see that this case shows much of anything at all.
See... there's the problem... Supreme Court cases are about the Constitution, and darn little else.
Exactly. Especially to say that this is Roberts' first baby kill is simply wrong.
No reason to believe that the lower court ruling would have been overturned at least 5-4 even if the case were heard by the SCOTUS.
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