Vol. 71/No. 18      May 7, 2007

The 5-4 ruling upheld the constitutionality of the 2003 federal “Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act,” which banned a specific method of abortion for the first time since the medical procedure was decriminalized in the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling. D&E is normally performed in the second or third trimester of pregnancy. The 2003 law, which was passed with substantial bipartisan support at the time, also allows husbands of women who undergo the procedure, or parents of minors who do so, to sue their relatives and doctors.

Pro-choice groups had obtained stays on implementation of the ban, with federal judges in Nebraska, California, and New York finding the legislation unconstitutional. The Supreme Court decision reverses those rulings by lower courts. The federal ban will go into effect in 25 days. Doctors who perform the procedure can now face criminal prosecution, fines, and up to two years in prison.

In the court majority opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy emphasized “ethical and moral concerns.”

The dissenting opinion, read from the bench by Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, said that the law “saves not a single fetus from destruction.” Ginsburg also called the majority decision “an attempt to chip away a right declared again and again by this court, and with increasing comprehension of its centrality to women’s lives.”

U.S. president George Bush applauded the decision as “an affirmation of the progress we have made over the past six years in protecting human dignity and upholding the sanctity of life.”

Several prominent Democrats criticized the ruling because it includes no exceptions to protect the health of a pregnant woman. Sen. Barack Obama, a leading contender for the 2008 Democratic Party presidential nomination, opposed the decision for “dramatically depart[ing] from previous precedents safeguarding the health of pregnant women.”

Having the majority in Congress, Democrats in the House and Senate have the ability to repeal the ban through new legislation. But no one has proposed doing so.

“Those who support this law are trying to outlaw all abortions, one step at a time,” said Dr. LeRoy Carhart, a Nebraska doctor involved in the lawsuit challenging the ban, according to today’s New York Times.

Some 87 percent of U.S. counties have no abortion provider today. Other attacks on a woman’s right to choose include mandatory waiting periods and parental consent laws for minors.

Speakers at yesterday’s rally here included representatives of the National Organization for Women (NOW), the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL), Planned Parenthood, and some Democratic Party politicians. Many speakers promoted electing Democrats in 2008 as a way to defend a woman’s right to choose.

According to NARAL and Pro-Choice New York, other protests occurred in Seattle; St. Louis; San Francisco; Helena, Montana; and Washington. “The Supreme Court decision is an attack on women’s health,” said Anne Keenan of New York City Planned Parenthood. “Doctors and patients should make the decision.”

“I am not happy with the decision,” Jessica Hernández, another protester, told the Militant. “I came today because women of color have been left out of decisions of women’s health and dignity.”

The day after the court ruling, NOW president Kim Gandy released a statement indicating her organization’s response to the decision is to help pass the Freedom of Choice Act, which Gandy says “would legislatively reverse the Court’s damaging decision.”
 
 
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