| Editorial
US
Supreme Court Upholds Ban on Partial Birth Abortion
By Mary Hahn Beerworth
 When
the US Supreme Court upheld the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act by a 5-4
vote on Wednesday, April 18, 2007, the growing national pro-life effort
was handed another victory in the battle to regain legal protection for
unborn human beings. Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing the majority opinion
in Gonzalez v. Carhart, said the law's opponents "have not demonstrated
that the act would be unconstitutional in a large fraction of relevant
cases."
Also voting in the majority
were Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia
and Clarence Thomas. Voting in the minority were Justices Paul Breyer,
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Souter and John Paul Stevens.
Writing for a 5-4 majority,
Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote, "The Act proscribes a method of abortion
in which a fetus is killed just inches before completion of the birth process.
. . Congress determined that the abortion methods it proscribed had a 'disturbing
similarity to the killing of a newborn infant.' . . .".
"Where it has a rational
basis to act, and it does not impose an undue burden, the State may use
its regulatory power to bar certain procedures and substitute others,"
Justice Kennedy continued in his majority opinion, "all in furtherance
of its legitimate interests in regulating the medical profession in order
to promote respect for life, including the life of the unborn." (Emphasis
added)
The ruling left intact the
so-called "right to abortion" set in Roe vs. Wade, but sends a signal
to the states and the federal government that it is now constitutional
to impose "reasonable regulations" on abortionists.
"Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton,
Nancy Pelosi, and their allies blocked this law for 12 years -- but finally,
it is illegal in America to mostly deliver a premature infant before puncturing
her skull and removing her brain, which is what a partial-birth abortion
is," commented Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right
to Life Committee (NRLC).
The court decision includes
detailed descriptions of the steps involved with the three-day partial-birth
abortion procedure and compares the method to other late term abortion
procedures. The brutality of abortion is so graphically depicted in Gonzales
v. Carhart that it sears images in the mind that cannot be easily erased.
The case will be required reading for law students, law professors, politicians,
court reporters, members of the media and others all over the country –
and the decision will have an impact on a country already, according to
recent polls, increasingly pro-life.
For more information on the
latest public opinion polling see: http://www.lifenews.com/nat3125.html
But perhaps of most interest
is the fact that the majority opinion uses new terminology when referring
to an unborn child and acknowledges the emotional and physical aftereffects
of abortion on women. Quotes from the decision (below) reveal language
selected to recognize not "potential life" but a "child" and an "infant"
and makes reference to abortion as "killing."
Today, Gonzales v Carhart
places the truth about abortion in plain view for those willing to read
it. The case is also an irrefutable and accurate record of this terrible
chapter in the history of our great country and our children and grandchildren
will hold us to account for it.
To view the decision in
its entirety, see http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/06pdf/05-380.pdf
Quotes from majority decision
written by Justice Kennedy:
Respect for human life
finds an ultimate expression in the bond of love the mother has for her
child. The Act (the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003) recognizes
this reality as well. Whether to have an abortion requires a difficult
and painful moral decision. Casey, supra, at 852-853 (opinion of
the Court). While we find no reliable data to measure the phenomenon, it
seems unexceptionable to conclude some women come to regret their choice
to abort the infant life they once created and sustained. ….Severe depression
and loss of esteem can follow.
In a decision so fraught
with emotional consequence some doctors may prefer not to disclose precise
details of the means that will be used, confining themselves to the required
statement of risks the procedure entails. From one standpoint this ought
not to be surprising. Any number of patients facing imminent surgical procedures
would prefer not to hear all of the details, lest the usual anxiety preceding
invasive medical procedures become the more intense. This is likely the
case with the abortion procedures here in issue. See, e.g., Nat. Abortion
Federation, 330 F. Supp. 2d. at 466, n. 22 (Most of (‘the plaintiffs’)
experts acknowledged that they do not describe to their patients what (the
D&E) procedures entail in clear and precise terms").
It is, however, precisely
this lack of information concerning the way in which the fetus will be
killed that is of legitimate concern to the State………The State has an interest
in ensuring so grave a choice is well informed. It is self-evident that
a mother who comes to regret her choice to abort must struggle with a grief
more anguished and sorrow more profound when she learns, only after the
event, what she once did not know: that she allowed a doctor to pierce
the skull and vacuum the fast-developing brain of her unborn child, a child
assuming the human form.
Brief History of the
Federal Legislation
NRLC, the nation's major
right-to-life organization, led the coalition that resulted in enactment
of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act in 2003, after an 8-year fight. President
Bill Clinton had vetoed the ban twice after it passed both Houses of Congress.
For the most extensive history on the debate over partial-birth abortion
see: www.nrlc.org
Former Vermont Senator Jim
Jeffords and former Congressman Sanders cast more than a dozen votes each
in attempts to keep the partial birth abortion procedure legal. After initially
voting against the ban along with Jeffords and Sanders, Senator Patrick
Leahy reversed course and voted with the majority to ban the procedure.
While dozens of states moved quickly to enact their own bans on the procedure
in lieu of the Clinton veto, here in Vermont a similar proposal was granted
a hearing in 1998 but ultimately failed in committee. When the federal
ban passed the Senate in 2003 (over the nay vote of Senator Hillary Clinton)
it was signed into law by President George W. Bush. Representatives of
the Vermont Right to Life Committee attended the landmark event. Planned
Parenthood immediately filed suit joined by other abortion promoters. The
ruling is considered a huge setback by Planned Parenthood, the single largest
provider of abortions in Vermont, in the US and in the world, and they
publicly refer to the court decision as a "dark day."
Mary Hahn Beerworth, Executive
Director, Vermont Right to Life Committee
802-229-4885
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