Posted on 02/01/2006 8:04:44 PM PST by neverdem
Two federal appeals courts yesterday upheld rulings that the Partial Birth Abortion Act, passed by Congress in 2003 but barred by the courts, is unconstitutional because it does not include an exception when the health of a pregnant woman is at risk.
The rulings, which came on the same day from three-judge panels in the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in New York, and the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, were substantially based on a United States Supreme Court decision in a Nebraska case in 2000. In that case, the Supreme Court found that any abortion ban must include an exception allowing a procedure that involves a partly delivered fetus after the first trimester of pregnancy, known among opponents as partial birth abortion, when alternative methods could endanger the woman's health.
Since the appeals court for the Eighth Circuit, in St. Louis, reached a similar conclusion last July, the three legal challenges nationwide to the abortion act have now been affirmed on appeal. This month the Supreme Court several times postponed deciding whether to hear the Eighth Circuit case.
The Second Circuit upheld the challenge, brought by the National Abortion Federation, on the narrowest of grounds, and did not strike down the act. Instead, the appeals court gave both sides 30 days to offer recommendations on how to remedy the failings in the law.
One of the three judges, Chester J. Straub, dissented. He wrote that he does not believe a woman's right to end her pregnancy under Roe v. Wade in 1973 "extends to the destruction of a child that is substantially outside her body."
The Second Circuit chief judge, John M. Walker Jr., wrote in a concurring opinion that precedent forced him to rule against the act "no matter how personally distasteful the fulfillment of that..."
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Out of all the partial birth abortions they've done, I'll bet the # where the "mother" was actually in any danger is ZERO.
Its less than 1%.
But I agree that something needs to be there, just in case. Don't know how you include such an exception without it being abused though.
It is time for a Constitutional Amendment to end abortion. I am so sick of judges basing insane abortion decisions on "settled" abortion law. Roe vs Wade is a farce, it either needs to be overturned or a constitutional amendment.
It also does not include exceptions for your pet kangaroo's malaria, or if the carburetor on your vintage Chevy SuperSport isn't set to optimize the fuel/air mixture. If you have figured out that none of these has any impact on the health of the mother, you will understand that the caveat is merely a smokescreen.
It's right next to the right to sodomy clause.
How could I have missed that all the times I read the Constitution?
If these judges want to be legislators so badly, they need to resign from the bench and run for Congress...'cause they're destroying the republic!
LOL. I knew something was up with my copy of the Constitution because it had a "Made in China" logo on it.
It is not less than 1%, it has to be ZERO! Under what circumstance would partially delivering a baby butt first and stabbing him in the skull possibly protect a woman's health versus a normal live delivery? Or are they saying the partial birth option has to be allowed because other methods of aborting the baby could endanger the woman's health? Either way, it's a ridiculuous argument.
Any problem that would endnager the life of the mother if she delivered her baby would be solved by doing a C-Section. Prolonging a vaginal delivery while killing the baby would only worsen such a condition. I'm sure they cannot even think of a specific situation that would require this. Even delivering a hydrocephalic baby in a breech position vaginally (which would be very stupid)would cause the baby to die before they could do anything, or would need to.
It truly isn't about the health of the mother. If the mother's health was in danger and the pregnancy has to be terminated, why does the baby need to be killed in order to save the mother? Can't you try to save both?
Partial birth abortions are not emergency procedures. The woman's cervix must be mechanically dilated over 3 days to allow the legs, arms, and body of the child to be "birthed".
This type of abortion is typically done at 4.5 months and later, which means that some of the older babies have a chance to survive if delivered intact.
There is absolutely no reason to kill the child in order to end the pregnancy.
One reason this technique is used is because the woman does not have to go through labor as in a normal vaginal delivery, nor does is she scarred as in a Caesarian section.
Unbeknownst to even the doctor (this was before ultrasound), the woman was carrying co-joined twins. A head was delivered, and the woman labored long and hard, and nothing else presented.
They finally called in x-ray--and saw what the problem was. It was really gruesome, but they decapitated the presented head, so that they could do a C-section. and save the mother. Needless to say, the other twin was dead, too.
Of course, this was an extremely rare situation, and in this day and age, would be dicovered long before delivery, so the doctors would be prepared to do an immediate section when the woman went into labor.
Ummm .. I thought it did include an exception when the health of a pregnant woman is at risk???
If the mother's life was in danger ... then a C-section could be preformed
PBA takes approx. 2 days to do
Most people on either side of this issue don't talk about this much, but I believe that a very large number of partial-birth abortions are conducted because of serious fetal abnormalities that cause the parents to want to terminate the pregnancy.
I feel terrible for anyone who is in a position where they even feel the need to consider PBA. It's a brutal and sickening procedure, and I can't imagine the guilt someone would feel after doing it.
Having said that, your example though an extreme case, makes me think that there is some merit to including a reasonable exception where the life of the mother is at risk. Nothing like the gaping holes that Diane Feinstein and others have tried to include, however.
They FIXED the bill that President Bush signed. There's clearly something else going on here.
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