Court backs ban on abortion procedure

Started by blackmanxxx, Apr 18, 2007, 07:27 AM

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blackmanxxx

Court backs ban on abortion procedure

By MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press Writer
4 minutes ago



WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court upheld the nationwide ban on a controversial abortion procedure Wednesday, handing abortion opponents the long-awaited victory they expected from a more conservative bench.

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The 5-4 ruling said the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act that Congress passed and        President Bush signed into law in 2003 does not violate a woman's constitutional right to an abortion.

The opponents of the act "have not demonstrated that the Act would be unconstitutional in a large fraction of relevant cases," Justice        Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion.

The decision pitted the court's conservatives against its liberals, with President Bush's two appointees, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice        Samuel Alito, siding with the majority.

Justices        Clarence Thomas and        Antonin Scalia also were in the majority.

It was the first time the court banned a specific procedure in a case over how -- not whether -- to perform an abortion.

Abortion rights groups have said the procedure sometimes is the safest for a woman. They also said that such a ruling could threaten most abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy, although government lawyers and others who favor the ban said there are alternate, more widely used procedures that remain legal.

The outcome is likely to spur efforts at the state level to place more restrictions on abortions.

More than 1 million abortions are performed in the United States each year, according to recent statistics. Nearly 90 percent of those occur in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, and are not affected by Tuesday's ruling.

Six federal courts have said the law that was in focus Wednesday is an impermissible restriction on a woman's constitutional right to an abortion.

The law bans a method of ending a pregnancy, rather than limiting when an abortion can be performed.

"Today's decision is alarming," Justice        Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in dissent. She said the ruling "refuses to take ... seriously" previous Supreme Court decisions on abortion.

Ginsburg said the latest decision "tolerates, indeed applauds, federal intervention to ban nationwide a procedure found necessary and proper in certain cases by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists."

She was joined by Justices        Stephen Breyer,        David Souter and        John Paul Stevens.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070418/ap_on_go_su_co/scotus_abortion

SecondToDie

The problem I have with this is that there should be no Federal law or rulings legalizing or banning abortion.  It should be left up to the states.  However, I'm glad that the court is skeptical of the fact that there is a "right" to abortion somewhere in the Constitution.

SecondToDie

Most feminist/liberal blogs are lamenting this ruling.  The irony is that in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech massacre, these same bloggers are calling for more gun control.  So basically they have no problem infringing on rights specifically enshrined in the Constitution, but they think that women should be free to murder their babies, a right created by fiat of SCOTUS in 1973.

blackmanxxx

great  minds  think  alike,  mein   freud  ! :angel4:

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