USA Today examines issues Supreme Court will decide in challenge to federal abortion ban

Oct 30 2006

USA Today on Monday examined how Congress' "power to limit the reach" of Roe v. Wade -- the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court case that effectively barred state abortion bans -- by "restricting medical options for women" will be tested in the Department of Justice's appeal to the high court to uphold a federal law banning so-called "partial-birth" abortion (Biskupic, USA Today, 10/30).

President Bush signed the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act (S 3) into law in November 2003, but federal judges in California, Nebraska and New York each issued temporary restraining orders to prevent enforcement of the ban. The Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of the National Abortion Federation and the Center for Reproductive Rights on behalf of four abortion providers filed lawsuits alleging that the law is unconstitutional because of the absence of a health exception. In place of a health exception, the law includes a long "findings" section with medical evidence presented during congressional hearings that, according to supporters of the law, indicates the procedures banned by the law are never medically necessary. The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments in two of the cases on Nov. 8 (Kaiser Daily Women's Health Policy Report, 10/2).

Banned Procedures
According to USA Today, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has said that the procedures banned under the measure -- called "intact dilation and extraction and evacuation" and "dilation and extraction" -- are increasingly regarded as the safest abortion procedures during the second trimester of pregnancy. The American Association of Pro Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists has said that other second-trimester abortion procedures not banned under the law -- including drug-induced labor and a dilation and evacuation procedure in which the physician "dismembers" the fetus inside the uterus -- are "medically appropriate" for all women, USA Today reports. U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement, who is arguing the appeal for DOJ, has said that although there is disagreement among medical experts about the necessity of the banned procedures, the Supreme Court must defer to Congress' findings section. "Even for women whose health condition is not compromised, intact [dilation and extraction] is a significantly safer method of abortion," PPFA attorney Eve Gartner said, adding that if the law were enforced, doctors would be "chilled from continuing to provide these procedures, ... (and) women's liberty will be infringed and their right to choose abortion unduly burdened" (USA Today, 10/30).