Bush team seeks to hasten abortion trials
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SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- The Bush administration is seeking to expedite legal proceedings before three federal judges who last week blocked the government from enforcing a new law banning certain late-term abortions.
According to court papers, the government wants to skip preliminary stages in each of the three lawsuits and move directly to separate trials. In doing so, the government said it would agree to extend to 120 days the temporary restraining orders that judges in Nebraska, New York and San Francisco issued last week.
Normally, a temporary restraining order lasts just weeks but once imposed there are lengthy hearings to determine whether that order should stand while the case goes to trial. The government wants to move directly to trial, beginning perhaps in March.
The judges have not yet ruled on the government's motions.
The new law outlaws a procedure generally performed in the second or third trimester in which a fetus is partially delivered before being killed, usually by puncturing its skull. Anti-abortion activists call the procedure "partial-birth abortion." President Clinton had twice vetoed similar bills.
After President Bush signed the law last week, federal judges in three states blocked the ban. Most of the nation's abortion providers are covered by the three injunctions.
The judges ruled the law appeared unconstitutional because it did not allow women to have partial birth abortions even if their health was at risk.
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