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A Virginia law banning a type of late-term abortion is still unconstitutional, even though a similar federal ban was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday. The 2-1 decision by a panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirms the same court’s 2005 ruling striking down the law. The Supreme Court had ordered the appeals court to take another look at Virginia’s statute after the ruling on the federal ban. The appeals court cited a key difference between the federal and state bans on the procedure that abortion opponents call “partial-birth abortion.” The...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday that a Virginia law banning an abortion procedure was unconstitutional because it infringed on a woman's right to end her pregnancy. The 2-1 decision by the appeals court based in Richmond, Virginia, was a victory for abortion rights advocates who had challenged the 2003 law that bans what it terms "partial birth infanticide." The U.S. Supreme Court last year upheld a federal law, the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act, saying it prohibited only a clearly defined method. It marked the first time the court has ever upheld a nationwide ban...

Proposed Amendment Would Allow Tennessee to Ban Partial-Birth Abortion House rules must be suspended by 2/3 of members for the majority to get a fair vote. About a week ago I sent you an urgent message asking you to contact members of the Tennessee House to urge their support for SJR 127. It is the proposed constitutional amendment that will allow Tennessee to pass a Constitutionally sound ban on partial-birth abortion. I just wanted to give you a friendly reminder that there is still time to act. And, in fact, your action now may be more important than before. (I'll...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- In a Sunday interview, pro-abortion presidential candidate Barack Obama defended his opposition to a ban on partial-birth abortions. Though he wasn't in Congress at the time it voted on the ban, he said he would have supported it had it contained a health exception. However, doctors and medical groups readily acknowledge that the three-day-long abortion procedure -- involving the killing of an unborn baby halfway through the birthing process - never helps women medically. Obama also claimed pro-life advocates only brought the partial-birth abortion ban forward only to "polarize" the abortion debate. Full story at: http://www.lifenews.com/nat3896.html

Four months ago the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. As I said at the time, banning this unspeakably barbaric form of abortion was a victory—albeit a small one—for the pro-life cause. It represented another step toward the end of abortion-on-demand in this country. Certainly the nation’s pro-abortion forces saw it that way as well. The near-hysterical reaction of the Center for Reproductive Rights was typical: “The U.S. Supreme Court,” it said, “effectively overturned 30 years of precedent and announced that women’s health is no longer a paramount concern . . . the Court’s decision paves...

by Steven ErteltLifeNews.com EditorAugust 31, 2007Topeka, KS (LifeNews.com) -- A top pro-life Kansas lawmaker is backing down from proposing more restrictions on late-term abortions. Instead, state Rep. Arlen Siegfreid says he wants to make sure the health department is following the law and accurately and adequately reporting how many of the abortions are done and why.Siegfried also wants to propose new legislation making the reporting requirements for abortion practitioners more thorough.Current state law requires that late-term abortions only be done to save a woman's life or to prevent “substantial and irreversible harm” to “a major bodily function.” However, Wichita abortion...

Much was made of Congress upholding the 2003 partial-birth abortion ban this past April. Pro-life groups applauded, while pro-choice groups ranted that it was chipping away at Roe v. Wade, the landmark case that made abortion legal in the United States. But, just last week, a story surfaced in the Boston Globe about how doctors are using lethal drugs to kill fetuses in the womb, so the baby is not alive when it's "delivered." Apparently, it's all legal. It allows doctors to circumvent the partial-birth abortion law, or at least the spirit of it, because the intent of the law...

How are abortion clinics protecting themselves against charges under the partial-birth abortion ban? By ensuring unborn babies are dead by injecting them first with lethal drugs before aborting them. The practice has been adopted by many abortion providers across the U.S. in the wake of the Supreme Court decision upholding the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, reported the Boston Globe. The banned abortion procedure is particularly grisly. It requires the abortion doctor to partially deliver a live baby, then kill it by inserting scissors into the base of its head and using a suctioning machine to remove its brain. Other procedures,...

How are abortion clinics protecting themselves against charges under the partial-birth abortion ban? By ensuring unborn babies are dead by injecting them first with lethal drugs before aborting them. The practice has been adopted by many abortion providers across the U.S. in the wake of the Supreme Court decision upholding the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, reported the Boston Globe. The banned abortion procedure is particularly grisly. It requires the abortion doctor to partially deliver a live baby, then kill it by inserting scissors into the base of its head and using a suctioning machine to remove its brain. Other procedures,...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds that a majority of Americans backed the Supreme Court's decision earlier this year to uphold a national ban on partial-birth abortions. The poll is consistent with other surveys showing Americans strongly opposing the gruesome abortion procedure. While abortion advocates frequently paint the high court's decision as out of step with the American public, the poll shows it is pro-abortion groups who don't represent most people. The poll found that 55 percent of Americans agreed with the decision upholding the national partial-birth abortion ban.The survey found that a majority of...

BATON ROUGE, Louisiana — Louisiana became the first American state to outlaw a late-term abortion procedure on Friday, when the governor approved legislation allowing doctors to be prosecuted for performing the surgery. The new law allows so-called "partial birth" abortions in only one situation: when failure to perform it would endanger the mother's life. The procedure would be a crime in all other cases, even if the pregnancy is expected to cause health problems for the mother. Democratic Gov. Kathleen Blanco signed into law criminal penalties for doctors who perform the surgery: fines of between $1,000 and $10,000, and jail...

State becomes first to ban controversial procedureBATON ROUGE, Louisiana - Louisiana became the first American state Friday to outlaw a controversial abortion procedure that involves partially removing the fetus intact from a woman's uterus, then crushing or cutting its skull to complete the abortion. The new law allows the procedure in only one situation at any time during pregnancy: when failure to perform it would endanger the mother's life. The procedure would be a crime in all other cases, even if the pregnancy is expected to cause health problems for the mother. Anti-abortion activists call the procedure "partial-birth abortion;" surgeons...

The Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Travesty By Brian Rohrbough This past month, five WND pieces have run regarding our widely-publicized open letters to Dr. James Dobson in which we document the 30-year failure of the pro-life movement. Long ago, National Right To Life devised a strategy of introducing laws to regulate child-killing, and now in order to defend those immoral tactics, many of our greatest Christian leaders have adopted the secular humanist principle of moral relativism. The bad fruit of all this is a federal judiciary stacked with Republican pro-choice judges who reject the personhood of the child, and who issue...

LifeNews.com Note: Laura Echevarria is the former Director of Media Relations and a spokesperson for the National Right to Life Committee and has been a radio announcer, freelance writer active in local politics. She is a new opinion columnist for LifeNews.com.In 1994, during a job interview with the National Right to Life Committee, the communications director described for me an abortion procedure that was so heinous and repugnant I was stunned. A couple of months later, as a new staff member, my education about the procedure called partial-birth abortion began. When I think back about all of the hard work...

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — The Louisiana Legislature approved a ban on a late-term abortion procedure yesterday, the first state to do so since the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a federal ban earlier this year. The House voted unanimously to approve a measure that would allow "partial-birth" abortions only when failure to perform it would endanger the mother's life. The procedure would be a crime in all other cases, including situations where the pregnancy is expected to cause health problems for the mother. The measure goes to Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, a Democrat who describes herself as pro-life but has...

I learned with sadness and chagrin that at the recent convention of National Right to Life, the organization's leadership decided to purge the Colorado Chapter because the chapter took to task the pro-life leaders who applauded Justice Kennedy's reasoning in Gonzales v. Carhart — the recent Supreme Court decision on partial birth abortion. (For my analysis of this decision, please see the article "Gardeners of Evil" at RenewAmerica.us.) Unfortunately, this news was not my first inkling of the internecine conflict the decision brought to light within the ranks of the pro-life movement. Judie Brown has been one of the critics...

NEW YORK, May 3, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Amnesty International US has adopted a new policy supporting a "right" to abortion, a move which the organization is attempting to keep secret from the public, according to reports this week carried by First Things and Consistent Life. Ryan T. Anderson, writing for First Things, reported on a buried policy statement he unearthed from the members-only, restricted-content page of AI's US website. The policy outlined AI's new position on Sexual and Reproductive Rights that "includes support for abortion." While the document claims AI would support abortion only in "particular circumstances," in effect the...

At the beginning of her dissent in the recent Partial Birth Abortion (PBA) case, Gonzalez v. Carhart, Justice Ginsburg, joined by Justices Stevens, Souter and Breyer, called the majority's decision "alarming." Though there is nothing legally alarming about this decision, Justice Ginsburg and other abortion advocates' feelings were deeply hurt by what they consider an intrusion on their rights. Yes, this decision is an intrusion on the tight grip they've had on abortion jurisprudence in America. In the past, abortionists enjoyed an unprecedented level of respect, security and even admiration that the country's highest Court did not show this...

LifeNews.com Note: Wendy Wright is the president of Concerned Women for America.Legal experts will debate the meaning of the Supreme Court's 5 – 4 decision that upholds a ban on partial-birth abortion. As an activist I am struck by one simple fact: The majority on the Court established in Gonzalez v. Carhart that abortion is no longer sacrosanct. In language that is startling because it comes from the Court, the Justices display respect for unborn life, describes how abortion harms women and determines that abortionists shouldn’t get to decide whether their acts are criminal. After decades of ignoring the child...

Lying is at the heart of all injustice, as yesterday's Communists talked of "equality" and provided equally miserable conditions or today's Islamists deny the holocaust ever occurred while plotting a new one. Here in America, as Kathleen Parker makes abundantly clear in her column today, the advocates of unrestricted abortion have deliberately used sterile language to conceal the nature of the act which eventuates in the death of a developing human being. Parker introduces her readers to such expressions as "disarticulate the fetus'' and even "reduce'' or "separate the fetal calvarium.'' Herewith, a brief translation: Disarticulating a fetus, which sounds like...

Eleven years ago, when U.S. senators were in the midst of a fierce debate over partial-birth abortion, the proceedings were abruptly interrupted by a baby's cry. I was there that day and will never forget that electrifying moment, a reminder of what we were fighting for: nothing less than the lives of innocent babies. I thought of that baby's cry this week when the Supreme Court upheld the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. It took thirty-four years to get from Roe v. Wade to the first significant prescription of so-called “abortion rights.” It’s a reminder that when it comes to eradicating...

WASHINGTON, D.C., June 19, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Supreme Court is set to revisit a second Bush Administration appeal that seeks to reinstate a ban on partial birth abortion, reports the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ). The ACLJ, which specializes in constitutional law, said it is pleased the Supreme Court has decided to hear the case, which involves the constitutionality of the national ban on partial-birth abortion. “The Supreme Court took a significant step today that clearly puts the issue of partial-birth abortion front-and-center,” said Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel of the ACLJ, which litigates pro-life issues. “By taking...

Law Center Defends Michigan’s Ban on Partial Birth Abortions in the Federal Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ANN ARBOR, MI —The Thomas More Law Center, a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, filed its opening brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in defense of Michigan’s ban on partial birth abortions. The Law Center is asking the court to overturn the lower court ruling, which struck down the ban and denied its prime sponsor, Standing Together To Oppose Partial-birth-abortion (“STTOP”), to intervene in the lawsuit. The Act, known as the Michigan Legal...

Pro-life Americans are cheering the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to hear an important abortion case. The Court announced it would hear the appeal in Gonzales v. Carhart, which involves a challenge to the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act (PABA). The significant part of this news is that the Court's new makeup – influenced by President Bush's two nominees (Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito) – offers fresh hope to supporters of life. The federal partial-birth abortion law, passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bush in 2003, has been the target of a stream of court challenges...

details soon...

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court said Tuesday it will consider the constitutionality of banning a type of late-term abortion, teeing up a contentious issue for a newly-constituted court already in a state of flux over privacy rights. The Bush administration has pressed the high court to reinstate the federal law, passed in 2003 but never put in effect because it was struck down by judges in California, Nebraska and New York. The outcome will likely rest with the two men that President Bush has recently installed on the court. Justices had been split 5-4 in 2000 in striking down a...

With three federal appellate courts now ruling the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2004 unconstitutional, the issue likely will be decided by the newly configured Supreme Court, with two conservative justices recently appointed by President Bush. Jordan Lorence, an attorney with the public-interest legal group Alliance Defense Fund, told WND he believes it's probable that one of the three cases will be heard by the high court his fall, with a decision coming in June 2007. A ruling last year by the 8th Circuit already has been appealed. On Tuesday, the 9th Circuit Court in San Francisco and the...

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...

Feb 1, 3:24 AM EST Appeals courts uphold abortion finding By LARRY NEUMEISTER Associated Press Writer NEW YORK (AP) -- Two federal appeals courts declared a law banning a type of late-term abortion unconstitutional, saying it lacks an exception for when a woman's health is in danger. The rulings on the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act are expected to be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, recently reconfigured with two new justices appointed by President Bush. A similar case from Nebraska already has been appealed. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in California and the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court...

SAN FRANCISCO - An appeals court ruled Tuesday that the federal law banning 'partial-birth' abortion is unconstitutional, saying the measure is vague and lacks an exception for cases in which a woman’s health is at stake.

WASHINGTON, January 5, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - On Friday, January 6, 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to decide whether to review a lower-court ruling that has blocked enforcement of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, a bill signed into law by President George W. Bush on November 5, 2003. The Court may announce its decision on whether to accept the case on January 6, or on Monday, January 9. In 2000, five justices of the Supreme Court, including soon-to-retire Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, ruled that the abortion right originally created in Roe v. Wade allows an abortionist to perform a...

.......abortion opponents in his home state of New Jersey are not rushing to endorse his confirmation... The heads of both New Jersey Right to Life and the League of American Families said they are troubled by Alito's 2000 ruling striking down the state's ban on partial-birth abortion. Richard Collier, the lawyer who unsuccessfully defended that law, said Alito has shown he is not "committed to the cause of life." Collier said he has reviewed the four cases to come before Alito in which it was an issue and his rulings in three of them "are not pro-life." "He's been tested...

[S]ocial conservatives face a problem: a new theory of "superprecedents" ... The term superprecedents first surfaced at the Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Judge John Roberts, when Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, asked him whether he agreed that certain cases like Roe had become superprecedents or "super-duper" precedents - that is, that they were so deeply embedded in the fabric of law they should be especially hard to overturn. In response, Judge Roberts embraced the traditional doctrine of "stare decisis" - or, "let the decision stand" - and seemed to agree that judges should...

SAN FRANCISCO -- A Bush administration lawyer urged a federal appeals court today to reinstate the first federal ban on a specific type of abortion, saying judges should bow to congressional findings that the procedure is unnecessary, immoral and dangerous. "Congress is due respect as a coequal branch of government'' and is "better situated (than the courts) to amass and weigh evidence,'' Justice Department lawyer Gregory Katsas told the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. The law, known as the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003, has been declared unconstitutional by every federal court that has reviewed...

As recently as October 1, 2005 the plea for the Supreme Court to reinstate the Partial Birth Abortion Act is still being made. The ban on partial abortions would prevent the fetus (usually in its second or third trimester) from being delivered and then executed. The ban was officially signed into law by President Bush in 2003. Recent upheaval about the reinstitution of the ban has resulted from many loopholes in the abortion process. According to Susan B. Anthony List.com, one example of an abortion violation occurred in the state of Minnesota during 2002. The following case was performed only...

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration has asked the Supreme Court to reinstate a ban on "partial birth" abortions, setting up a showdown that could be decided by the president's new choice for the court. The appeal, which had been expected, follows a two-year, cross-country legal fight over the federal law. An appeals court in St. Louis said this summer that the ban on late term abortion is unconstitutional because it makes no exception for the health of the woman.

The Bush administration has asked the Supreme Court to reinstate a ban on a procedure that critics call "partial birth" abortions, setting up a showdown that could be decided by the president's new choice for the court. The appeal, which had been expected, follows a two-year, cross-country legal fight over the federal law. An appeals court in St. Louis said this summer that the ban on late term abortion is unconstitutional because it makes no exception for the health of the woman. The Supreme Court has already scheduled arguments in November in another abortion case, involving New Hampshire's parental notification...

A good discussion of Doe v. Bolton is found at: DOE v. BOLTON, 410 U.S. 179 (1973) -- http://www.peopleforlife.org/bolton.html From this discussion and text, it is my opinion that Doe v. Bolton deals with the constitutionality of restrictions on abortion. I may be wrong. The important case that maybe Doe v. Bolton might be challenged on is: http://www.supremecourtus.gov/qp/04-01144qp.pdf -- AYOTTE, ATTORNEY. GEN. OF NH V. PLANNED PARENTHOOD That is why this is a question thread. It is my understanding that Doe v. Bolton addressed the question of placing restrictions on abortion. If that is true, then perhaps Doe v. Bolton...

DETROIT, Sept. 15 (UPI) -- A federal judge in Detroit has ruled unconstitutional Michigan's latest attempt to ban so-called partial birth abortions. U.S. District Judge Denise Hood, said the Legal Birth Definition Act violates women's rights. She ruled in favor of the law's opponents, primarily Northland Family Planning Clinic and Planned Parenthood. Both argued the law doesn't adequately protect the health of pregnant women and could have a chilling effect on legal abortions. Paul Long, vice president of the Michigan Catholic Conference, said: "It would be our great hope that the attorney general would appeal what we consider a poor...

LANSING, Mich. — A federal judge has declared unconstitutional Michigan's law aimed at banning a procedure that opponents call partial-birth abortion. In a ruling dated Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Denise Page Hood (search) in Detroit ruled the law places an "undue burden" on women's right to choose an abortion. The parties in the lawsuit learned of the ruling Wednesday.

RICHMOND, Va. - A federal appeals court Friday denied a request by Virginia's attorney general to rehear a case challenging a state law banning a type of late-term abortion. In June, a divided three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Virginia's law banning what anti-abortion activists call "partial-birth abortion" is unconstitutional because the law lacks an exception to protect a woman's health. The Center for Reproductive Rights challenged the law when it was passed by the General Assembly in 2003, and a federal judge blocked its enforcement. Following the appellate panel's ruling, Attorney General Judith...

A U.S. federal court of appeals has upheld a lower court ruling which says the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act is unconstitutional. The court ruled Friday that while the law made an exception for saving the life of a mother, it did not make an exception for preserving the health of the woman. President Bush signed the Act into law in 2003, but it was never enforced because of legal challenges. The U.S. Justice Department argued that the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act was prohibiting a particularly "gruesome, inhumane" procedure that was "never necessary to preserve the health of women." The...

In 2003, abortion opponents took a calculated gamble and pushed through the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act, a federal law very similar to a state law ruled unconstitutional just three years before. Critics asserted they were defying the court and doomed to fail in any legal challenge. Strategists for the anti-abortion movement were betting that the Supreme Court would soon be different: more conservative, and more open to an array of new abortion restrictions. With the retirement of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, part of the court's majority for abortion rights, that gamble may soon begin to pay off. The basic...

San Francisco, CA (LifeNews.com) -- A leading pro-life law firm has filed a legal brief in another of three lawsuits abortion advocates put forward challenging the federal ban on partial-birth abortions. The brief, submitted by the American Center for Law and Justice, represents the views of thirty-one pro-life members of Congress. The brief asks a federal appeals court in San Francisco to overturn a decision issued by U.S. District Court Judge Phyllis Hamilton declaring the ban unconstitutional because it lacks a health exception. "The ban is needed to put an end to one of the most barbaric and medically useless...

Bush Administration Files Appeal in Another Partial-Birth Abortion Lawsuit Email this article Printer friendly page by Steven Ertelt LifeNews.com Editor December 21, 2004 Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Abortion advocates filed three separate lawsuits seeking to overturn the national ban on partial-birth abortions. Judges in the first round of the legal debate overturned the ban in all three cases. The Bush administration has appealed the decisions and submitted its appeal brief in one case on Monday. U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton of San Francisco was the first of the three judges to overturn the ban. Her decision was the subject of a Justice...

LINCOLN, Nebraska, December 2, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Twenty-six Republican members of Congress filed a friend-of-the-court brief Thursday requesting that an appeals court overturn the September decision of Nebraska judge Richard Kopf, who ruled that the ban on partial-birth abortion is unconstitutional. The US Department of Justice launched an appeal of Kopf's decision with the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Lincoln last week. U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf ruled in September that a ban on committing the grisly procedure is unconstitutional because it does not allow any exception for the so-called health of the mother. "We are supporting the...

LINCOLN -- Twenty-six Republican members of Congress asked an appeals court Thursday to reinstate the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act, struck down by a federal judge in September. The House members sided with the U.S. Justice Department, saying in a friend-of-the-court brief that the government has a "vital and compelling interest in preventing the spread of the practice of abortion into infanticide." At issue is a federal law banning a procedure doctors call intact dilation and extraction, or D&X. Opponents call it partial-birth abortion. During the procedure, generally performed in the second trimester, a fetus is partly removed from the...

Bill and his guest just said that hitlery does NOT favor partial birth abortion. Isn't this completely incorrect? I thought the beast supported this sick procedure 100%. If they are wrong please e-mail blowhard for a retraction!

A federal judge ruled today the federal partial-birth abortion ban is unconstitutional, striking a blow to those determined to outlaw the grisly procedure. The ruling of U.S. District Judge Richard Casey of Manhattan mirrors one in June in a separate case in San Francisco. One more challenge to the ban, which was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bush, is still pending, in Nebraska. In his ruling, Casey called partial-birth abortion a "gruesome procedure" but claimed the ban conflicts with a 5-4 Supreme Court ruling in 2000 upholding the practice. That decision in the Steinberg v. Carhart...

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 C. 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 last November, banned a procedure known to doctors...