CNN logo
US navbar

Infoseek/Big Yellow


Pathfinder/Warner Bros


Barnes and Noble
Main banner
rule

Ban on abortions by non-physicians upheld

supreme.court

Supreme Court rules on Montana law

June 16, 1997
Web posted at: 2:02 p.m. EDT (1802 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Supreme Court on Monday allowed Montana, and perhaps other states as well, to ban abortions performed by licensed physician assistants.

The justices voted 6-3 to reverse a federal appeals court ruling that had blocked enforcement of the law.

The nation's highest court said its landmark 1992 decision reaffirming women's constitutional right to abortion allowed states to require that all abortions be performed by doctors.

"In the course of upholding the physician-only requirement at issue in that case, we emphasized that our cases reflect the fact that the Constitution give the states broad latitude to decide that particular functions may be performed only by licensed professionals, even if an objective assessment might suggest that those same tasks could be performed by other," the court said in an unsigned ruling.

At issue was a 1995 Montana law specifically barring licensed physician assistants from performing abortions. For the previous 21 years, that practice had been allowed by the state -- provided the assistant worked under the direct supervision of a physician.

Montana's law applied to one person -- Susan Cahill, the only non-physician in the state who performs abortions. Cahill works under the supervision of Dr. James Armstrong in Kalispell, Montana.

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy, David H. Souter and Clarence Thomas voted to reject the challenge to the law, while Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer dissented.

In other court action Monday, the court:

  • Left intact a lower court ruling that declared unconstitutional a Utah law banning most abortions for women over 20 weeks pregnant.

  • Rejected the appeals of two men convicted in separate Arizona murder cases. Max Dunlap had argued that prosecutors waited too long to charge him again after an earlier conviction -- for the 1976 bombing death of Phoenix newspaper reporter Don Bolles -- was thrown out. Johnathan Doody, convicted in 1993 of murdering six monks and three other people at a Buddhist temple in 1991, had argued that his Miranda rights were incorrectly applied.

  • Ruled unanimously that a 1986 law making it easy for private citizens to sue federal contractors for allegedly defrauding the government cannot be applied retroactively.

  • Ruled 8-1 that people who filed for bankruptcy protection must pay for property they are allowed to keep over creditors' objections.

  • Agreed to hear a case clarifying when government officials are immune from being sued for allegedly retaliating against someone for something that person said.

  • Agreed to decide if federal regulators were wrong to exempt a pro-Israel lobbying group from disclosing campaign- related expenditures. The Federal Election Commission decided in 1992 that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee was not a political organization and therefore was not subject to reporting requirements.

 
rule
CNN Plus

Related story:

Related sites:

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.

  
Search for related CNN stories:
  [Help]
Tip: You can restrict your search to the title of a document. Infoseek grfk

Example: title:New Year's Resolutions

rule
Message Boards

Sound off on our message boards

 Tell us what you think!

You said it...
rule
To the top

© 1997 Cable News Network, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.

Terms under which this service is provided to you.