Legal victory for abortion opponents
Legal victory for abortion opponents
By Patti Waldmeir in Washington
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Published: April 18 2007 15:46 | Last updated: April 18 2007 21:12
Abortion opponents won a big victory on Wednesday when the Supreme Court issued a politically explosive ruling upholding the first national ban on a specific abortion procedure since the landmark Roe v Wade decision in 1973.
The 5-4 ruling, which upheld the federal Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003, marks a significant shift to the right by the US’s top court on one of the country’s most divisive issues.
The ruling demonstrated for the first time the full impact on the court of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, the two conservatives appointed by George W. Bush, the president. Both men voted to restrict abortion rights in the case, helping form a more conservative majority on the issue.
Conservative politicians immediately welcomed the ruling. Mr Bush said: “The Supreme Court’s decision is an affirmation of the progress we have made over the past six years in protecting human dignity and upholding the sanctity of life. We will continue to work for the day when every child is welcomed in life and protected in law.”
But liberals said it marked a “seismic shift” in the court’s jurisprudence. “The new justices have shown their cards,” said Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, who said the ruling was a “stunning assault on women’s health”.
“The impact of Sandra Day O’Connor’s retirement is painfully clear,” she said, referring to the departure last year of the court’s liberal swing voter on abortion.
The majority stopped short of overruling any precedents upholding abortion rights, including Roe v Wade, which first gave US women a constitutional right to end their pregnancies.
However, the language of the ruling conveyed, at best, a lukewarm attitude to abortion rights precedents and seems to herald a more receptive approach to abortion restrictions.
The law is aimed primarily at a procedure known as intact dilation and extraction, a relatively rare technique used by some doctors in the second trimester of pregnancy. Most US abortions are performed during the first trimester.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who wrote a dissent on behalf of the court’s liberal wing, called the decision “alarming”. She said it “cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to chip away at a right declared again and again by this court – and with increasing comprehension of its centrality to women’s lives”.
She said Wednesday’s Supreme Court decision “should not have staying power”: a veiled reference to the fact that, if Democrats won the next presidential election they might be able to shift the court’s majority on abortion again by appointing a new more liberal justice.
In the meantime, legal experts say, the ruling is likely to inspire political conservatives in state governments to push for new measures to restrict abortion rights.
“This is an invitation to all sorts of legislative mischief that endangers women’s health” said Talcott Camp of the American Civil Liberties Union’s reproductive freedom project.
The majority left open the possibility that a woman whose health is threatened could challenge the ban in court. But Ms Camp dismissed the utility of these individual challenges. “Do we want women lining up, bleeding, waiting for a permission slip from the court?” she said.
By Patti Waldmeir in Washington
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Published: April 18 2007 15:46 | Last updated: April 18 2007 21:12
Abortion opponents won a big victory on Wednesday when the Supreme Court issued a politically explosive ruling upholding the first national ban on a specific abortion procedure since the landmark Roe v Wade decision in 1973.
The 5-4 ruling, which upheld the federal Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003, marks a significant shift to the right by the US’s top court on one of the country’s most divisive issues.
The ruling demonstrated for the first time the full impact on the court of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, the two conservatives appointed by George W. Bush, the president. Both men voted to restrict abortion rights in the case, helping form a more conservative majority on the issue.
Conservative politicians immediately welcomed the ruling. Mr Bush said: “The Supreme Court’s decision is an affirmation of the progress we have made over the past six years in protecting human dignity and upholding the sanctity of life. We will continue to work for the day when every child is welcomed in life and protected in law.”
But liberals said it marked a “seismic shift” in the court’s jurisprudence. “The new justices have shown their cards,” said Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, who said the ruling was a “stunning assault on women’s health”.
“The impact of Sandra Day O’Connor’s retirement is painfully clear,” she said, referring to the departure last year of the court’s liberal swing voter on abortion.
The majority stopped short of overruling any precedents upholding abortion rights, including Roe v Wade, which first gave US women a constitutional right to end their pregnancies.
However, the language of the ruling conveyed, at best, a lukewarm attitude to abortion rights precedents and seems to herald a more receptive approach to abortion restrictions.
The law is aimed primarily at a procedure known as intact dilation and extraction, a relatively rare technique used by some doctors in the second trimester of pregnancy. Most US abortions are performed during the first trimester.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who wrote a dissent on behalf of the court’s liberal wing, called the decision “alarming”. She said it “cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to chip away at a right declared again and again by this court – and with increasing comprehension of its centrality to women’s lives”.
She said Wednesday’s Supreme Court decision “should not have staying power”: a veiled reference to the fact that, if Democrats won the next presidential election they might be able to shift the court’s majority on abortion again by appointing a new more liberal justice.
In the meantime, legal experts say, the ruling is likely to inspire political conservatives in state governments to push for new measures to restrict abortion rights.
“This is an invitation to all sorts of legislative mischief that endangers women’s health” said Talcott Camp of the American Civil Liberties Union’s reproductive freedom project.
The majority left open the possibility that a woman whose health is threatened could challenge the ban in court. But Ms Camp dismissed the utility of these individual challenges. “Do we want women lining up, bleeding, waiting for a permission slip from the court?” she said.
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