Abortion ruling is hailed by pro-lifers
Pastor Dale Morgan
*Abortion ruling is hailed by pro-lifers*
By Catherine Elsworth in Los Angeles
Last Updated: 2:16am BST 19/04/2007
Pro-life campaigners yesterday welcomed a US court ruling that restricts
abortion rights by banning a controversial type of late-term termination.
A pro-life protester outside the Supreme Court building, Washington DC;
Abortion ruling is hailed by pro-lifers
A pro-life protester prays outside the Supreme
Court building in Washington DC
The Supreme Court decision to uphold a nationwide ban on a procedure
known as partial birth abortion amounted to the first restriction
imposed on abortion rights since women won the right to terminate
pregnancies in 1973. The 5-4 vote in favour of the ban was seen as a
victory for President George W Bush and his social conservative allies
in one of the most divisive debates in America.
The law was declared unconstitutional by three district courts and a
Court of Appeal before reaching the Supreme Court.
The court rejected two challenges to the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act
that Mr Bush signed into law in 2003, ruling that it did not violate the
right to an abortion established by the Roe v Wade ruling.
It is the first time the court has banned a specific procedure of abortion.
The law makes it a crime for a doctor to perform an abortion when the
"entire foetal head" or "any part of the foetal trunk past the navel" is
outside the uterus. The procedure, which often occurs in the second
trimester, is known medically as intact dilation and extraction.
Abortion rights groups have said the specific procedure is sometimes the
safest for a woman.
The ruling also marks a departure from the Supreme Court's usual
practice of inserting "health exception" clauses in laws to allow women
whose health would otherwise be at risk to have the procedure.
The Supreme Court's four most liberal members - Justices Ruth Bader
Ginsburg, John Paul Stevens, David Souter and Stephen Breyer - opposed
the decision.
Justice Ginsburg, the only woman on the panel, called the decision
alarming and said it marked an "effort to chip away" at a woman's right
to an abortion.