Court hears challenge to late-term abortion ban
From George Lerner
CNN
NEW YORK (CNN) -- Lawyers representing abortion providers and Justice Department attorneys completed closing arguments Tuesday in a landmark case challenging the constitutionality of a ban on a particular type of late-term abortion.
It's the third case to challenge the Partial-Birth Abortion Act of 2003. A federal judge in San Francisco, California, has ruled the act unconstitutional, and a U.S. court in Nebraska will rule on a second case by August 31.
Speaking on behalf of the National Abortion Federation, Stephen Hut asked U.S. District Court Judge Richard Conway Casey to toss out the act as unconstitutional, saying it was so vague that it would ban virtually all later-term abortions.
Hut also argued that the act failed to provide for the health of a woman.
"This attempt to impose Congress between the judgment of women and their doctors is dangerous and paternalistic," Hut told the court. "It unconstitutionally deprives women of autonomy over their bodies and their ability to make medical choices."
Assistant U.S. Attorney Sheila Gowan said Congress had determined that there were no health conditions that would make the procedure necessary to protect a woman's health.
"There is no evidence that banning [the] Partial-Birth Abortion [Act] would pose a significant risk to the health of women," Gowan said. "It inflicts severe pain on the fetus when there is no demonstrated safety advantage.
"It kills the unborn child mere inches from autonomy."
The law imposed criminal and civil penalties on "[a]ny physician who, in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce, knowingly performs a partial-birth abortion."
The law affects abortions carried out late in the typical 40-week pregnancy, but before the fetus is considered viable.
Such primarily second-trimester abortions usually involve a procedure known to doctors as "dilation and extraction," but referred to by opponents as "partial-birth abortion."
During the procedure, the fetus is partially removed and its skull collapsed.
